


midnight moonlight (color me blue)

by bamook (ultearsfall)



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Radio, Self-Doubt, Slow Burn, don't worry we have comic relief im not an asshole, not every member is In It but will be mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-07-20 01:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultearsfall/pseuds/bamook
Summary: he could never admit it- his pride would never let him- but jung jaehyun is lost, and it's the fault of nobody except himself.(or, jaehyun was an aspiring singer, let it go, and the mysterious voice on his university’s resident late night radio show reminds him of who he really is.)





	1. prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ummm hi!!!
> 
> this is my first multichapter fic in literally four years so please be gentle.
> 
> this is gonna be a... ride and i hope you guys stick around with me until then, i promise it's worth it! don't be scared off by slow burn!
> 
> this first chapter is a prologue so it's really.. exposition-y and here to set up the story. i know a lot of things are left out and that's the point! but i do also make mistakes and if anything is Really confusing just ask me. 
> 
> also from here on out other chapters will b longer!
> 
> thanks for listening to me <3
> 
> [edited 9/3/19]

In the grand scheme of things- across continents and countries and in between the experiences of the billions of people who inhabit said continents and countries; falling in love, working day and night for the opportunity to advance, traveling from city to city, changing the world- being twenty-one doesn’t mean that Jaehyun’s life is _over._

Yet, everyone in his life most certainly makes him feel that way. His family, his friends, and even the media are not exempt from this.

Except, of course, there's the undeniable fact that Jaehyun has yet to really _accomplish_ anything, as far as considerable accomplishments go. He was never the one to bring home trophies from baseball games or medals from competitions to a proud pair of parents with beaming smiles; instead, he had been one for barely scraping by with his grades, in his social relationships, and in just about every other way. 

Jung Jaehyun is a senior at Hongik University, one of Seoul’s premier institutes, and a far cry from the eighteen-year-old he had been when he first set foot in his dorm, a friendly Kim Jungwoo waving an enthusiastic _hello_ in his direction from the doorway. Jung Jaehyun is a Communications major.

Thirteen years before that, though, when he was barely four years old, Jaehyun fell in love with music.

* * *

It started the way a lot of stories do: It was, as many things are for a child, his mom’s fault.

Four-year-olds don’t give a shit about a lot of the things you try to make them give a shit about: vegetables, sharing, and basic hygiene, to name a few of the very, very many. And Jaehyun can say with full confidence that he didn’t really care for going to sit through his cousin’s graduation. He was four, he was energetic, and he was hungry the entire time, but his mother’s promise of barbecue afterward as long as he was on his “best behavior” calmed his jittery spirit and forced him to sit down in the uncomfortable auditorium chair for an hour before the graduation started. 

If there _was_ one thing that Jaehyun cared about, though, it was his video games that his mother regrets ever endowing upon him in the first place. The sounds from his copy of _Mario Cart: Super Circuit_ were sure to plague her every waking moment and her deepest dreams. Toad's horrific screams were sure to do that to anybody. But, of course, as most kids don't, Jaehyun is not aware of his mother's irritation with the game. Jaehyun played with his Gameboy for the entire hour while his mom ignored him completely to converse and laugh with her sister on her right, leaving Jaehyun to his devices with one simple request: _Please, sweetheart, would you turn the volume down_?

That made no big difference to Jaehyun. He drove the cars with just as much energy and delight as he would have strewn across his living room couch, making _whoosh_ noises with his own mouth as a replacement. He couldn't see it, nor would he have really understood why, but his mother sat by his side with a smile ever so slight stretching her lips.

Things move like this for a while. To a four-year-old child, an hour seems like forever. Nevertheless, when a voice boomed through the room, Jaehyun's attention was commanded immediately, ripped from the screen just as he got Mario to cross the finish line. There were very few things that could cause Jaehyun to leave his game alone, yet the voice ahead managed to do just that. He flinched and turned off the screen.

“Welcome to Korea National University of the Arts’ Class of 2001 Graduation ceremony,” The voice proclaimed. Jaehyun sat up in his seat, tucking his short legs beneath the rest of his form, and twisted his neck to locate a tall man standing behind a podium on the right side of the stage. A spotlight illuminated his figure, casting a long shadow over the curtain situated just behind. There was nothing else on the stage to distract Jaehyun, so for once, he paid attention. “We thank you for coming out tonight.”

The crowd clapped in response, one person starting the wave before the rest of the auditorium followed suit, eventually drowning out all other noise. When Jaehyun’s mother nudged at his shoulder, he did the same. 

The man droned on for a few more minutes, and Jaehyun, being the four-year-old that he was, eventually began to fade. Instead, he started to pick at the much more interesting loose string on the seam of his jeans, pulling at it until the seam opened a little bit. Yikes. His mom wouldn't be happy about that one; they'd just picked these out the week prior. It's dark, though. She won't notice. She's paying far too much attention to the boring man's speech, her eyes wide as if trying to take in everything he was saying. Jaehyun wasn't hearing a word out of the man's mouth. He began fiddling with his nails next.

“We would like to welcome our valedictorian, Park Junghee-ssi, to the stage.” He followed his statement with heavy claps, and through the fog in his distracted brain, he realized that he should be clapping too, because that’s his cousin, and his mother, aunt, and uncle were cheering as she walked across the stage. Jaehyun lifted his tiny hands and followed, Gameboy forgotten and falling down to rest between his thighs. 

Once Junghee reached the microphone that was situated in the middle of the stage, away from the podium that the school’s president was situated behind, she smiled brightly, and the cheers that had died down in the crowd once again rose in volume at the action. Jaehyun wondered why her face was suddenly so red.

The dress she wore was a simple off-white, almost cream, reaching down in a curtain to her ankles. There were no sleeves, and instead, Jaehyun's attention is drawn to the sparkly necklace around her neck that he vaguely remembered his aunt having given her and the way the light bounced off of it, creating those tiny little rainbows around her form. He blinked big eyes to stare at her.

She laughed. “Thank you for all the love.” Junghee gave a small bow and rose once again to speak into the microphone. There's a whoop from somewhere in the back, and she smiled even more widely. “Before I give my painfully boring valedictorian speech about friendship and the life we’ve had together…” She paused as a ripple of laughter passed through the crowd. Jaehyun didn’t get the joke, in his youth and inexperience. “...I would like to sing a song that I believe best represents the person I’ve become here. When I first auditioned for the School of Music, I sang Ave Maria, a song I think that many of us know quite well. But when I sang that song, I don’t know if I really understood what I was doing. I was just opening my mouth and singing what I had practiced for months. Yet, as time passed here, and I sang more and more songs and learned more and more about myself, I began to see performing as less of a chore and more of an outlet for my feelings, and as a place of relief. Today, I will be singing that song for you again, with renewed meaning. Please enjoy my performance.”

Nothing she said was registering in any manner. Junghee had sung a billion times for him, and at his young age, he thought it was the coolest thing ever. From before he could properly form his own sentences or write his own name, Junghee had been singing him to sleep. So, all he had heard was "song," and that meant that he _needed_ to pay attention, because Junghee is going to sing for him now, too.

Yet, just like how Ave Maria meant something new to her at that moment, her voice meant something new to Jaehyun. 

Maybe it was the environment; instead of standing in the atrium because _it echoes nicely here, Jaehyunnie,_ or sitting on the couch watching cartoons and giggling, Junghee stood on the large stage, accompanied by nobody except for the pianist seated behind her, looking like an angel in her white dress, the light shining down on her like the chosen one. For a moment, she shut her eyes tightly, inhaling, perhaps thinking of all the things that had brought her to be standing on that exact stage at that exact moment. As she opened her eyes, she also gave a gentle nod, and the man behind the piano nodded back. When the song started, Jaehyun began nodding, even though nobody could see him in that dark room; it was a song he knew, a song that Junghee had sung for him _a billion times before._

Her voice drifted across the room that had descended into an attentive silence, and everyone in the crowd seemed as though they were holding onto every single word she uttered. Jaehyun felt the same way, as if the words themselves were reaching out and tickling his chin, asking him to pay attention the way that Junghee had so many times, playfully smiling down at him. 

His barely-four-year-old world was flipped upside-down to rest on its big head at that moment. Despite all the times he had heard Junghee sing, just for him, her voice floating over the auditorium solidified something inside of him that he hadn’t known existed. 

When Ave Maria ended, and Junghee bowed, her face red with happiness, Jaehyun clapped and cheered just as loud as his mother and aunt, but for a different reason. Junghee gave her speech and the graduation went on like that, yet Jaehyun was no longer the bored four-year-old he had been when he had sat down. 

Before they left, filing behind a few hundred others to get out of the auditorium’s doors like fish escaping from a fisherman's net, Jaehyun squeezed his mother’s hand. When she looked down, she smiled brightly at him.

“We’re all going now, Jaehyunnie.” 

“No, Mom. Not that.” He shook his head more strongly than he needed to, and his mother tilted her head in confusion, still trying to move out of the double doors.

“What’s wrong, then?”

“Ma, I wanna be like Junghee.” He smiled so hard he felt his cheeks burn with the strength of it.

There was shock on her face for nothing more than a second, before her bright smile was back, her expression now filled with something else. “I thought you wanted to be a fireman last week.” She teased, poking at his cheek. The week before the fireman infatuation it had been _dolphin._ Jaehyun was one to have a new interest almost every week, and his mother had long since adapted to the constant change. 

“No! That's _boring._ ” He protested, swiping her hand away from his face, his smile still just as big. “I wanna do that. I want to sing.” 

Jaehyun’s mother pinched at his cheek in spite of his swinging as the two of them finally slid past the crowd of people in the doorway. She turned her gaze so that it was facing forwards once again, navigating the two of them through the dense crowd, but Jaehyun heard her voice- saccharine in tone- like a siren on a stormy night.

“You can be anything you want to be, Jaehyunnie.”

* * *

And for a long time, Jaehyun thought the same thing. 

But, there’s one thing about the world that a lot of those parents don’t let their kids in on: Not Everyone Feels the Same Way. And the world made sure that Jaehyun knew that pretty early on. After a certain age, kids stop agreeing with you when you admit to your outlandish dreams of becoming a superstar, of standing on the biggest stage in the world and singing your heart out. At one point, they laugh at you instead. But, in spite of the insults they hurled and the words they spat, Jaehyun, for a long time, refused to give up on that part of him that had bloomed in the auditorium that day. In fact, when he entered middle school, he began to form a personal code of sorts; to never forfeit that which he knew was inside of him.

Eventually, though, he forgot about his own code. It became hard to _not_ forget about it. Everywhere he turned, there was doubt; from himself, his friends, his family, and the media he so dearly loved. It’s hard to believe in yourself when no one else does. In the years that he spent in America, and those subsequent years that he spent back home in Korea, eventually, those insults chipped away at the identity he had formed around his dream. He could no longer walk with his shoulders high and his chin in the air. Something, somewhere, had reached a prying hand into his soul and silenced the dream that he so loudly believed in, once. Doubt.

Their skepticism was subtle, though, at least to them; their questions always followed the formula of _where are you hoping for your life to go,_ and when Jaehyun confidently replied that he wished to be a singer, he never missed the flicker in their eyes, or the cringe they made a lot more visible than he was sure they noticed. Sometimes, he even got the _Wow. Good luck, man_ and the piteous clap of a hand on his shoulder. Better yet- in fact, his favorite reply- _Isn’t it a little childish to be hoping for an idol life_? 

The singing lessons he had begged his mother for stopped when he was fourteen, much to her dismay. Jaehyun put that part of him away somewhere deep inside him, where that _dream_ was hidden. Instead of the pure and unadulterated bliss that the word ‘dream’ had once brought him, then, it meant little more than trash.

That world- the only world he had known for over a decade- was gone by no fault of anyone except himself, and there wasn't much left in its wake. Without the dream he had centered his life around, Jaehyun couldn't say that much of a person remained in its ashes. That fantasy had been just one season in his life of many, yet he was nothing without it. But he had to move on. There was no other choice. 

Thus, when he was sixteen years old and listing colleges to apply for, K-Arts was nowhere near the top. In fact, it wasn’t even on his list. Jaehyun hadn't been alone when he came to this decision; he'd been thirty minutes into his physics class, not paying one bit of attention to whatever his teacher had been rambling on about that day. Seconds before he nodded off, his pencil clasped gently in his hand, Jaehyun had given up. One would think that the moment would be far more monumental like in the movies- a reflective Jaehyun sitting alone upon a hilltop at dusk staring into the horizon, tears streaming down his face- but the reality was nothing of the sort. Such a simple day that Jaehyun had forgotten everything else about it. He'd _probably_ gone to lunch with his best friend, Ten. He'd _probably_ fallen asleep in three of his classes. A day full of insignificant things. 

But, he would always remember that as his head dipped, forehead against the cold, hard wood of the desks they were required to use, he just thought _why_.

The night Jaehyun had told his mom, it was cold. Autumn had come and gone as it usually did, leaving nothing except freezing air and brisk wind behind. It was one of the more chilly evenings of a dark and dismal season, he recalls, gentle rain pitter-pattering against the window and the distant sound of rattling branches. 

“Jaehyunnie, you’re sure?” Jaehyun's mother had whispered to him over the table, reaching across to grasp his hand with hers. His hands dwarfed them now, and he couldn't really remember when his mother had gotten so small in comparison to him. So fragile. His heart wrenched when he saw the fear and concern for her son etched into her face.

He'd chased an empty dream for so long that he'd been somewhere far, far away from the _real world,_ from reality. So long ago this would have been unfathomable, but Jaehyun supposed that everything had to change eventually.

“Yeah.” He muttered in response, flipping his hand over to hold her hand more tightly, hoping to reassure his mother, grinning. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he knew that she could tell. “I’m, uh… sorry for wasting your money all those years.” He giggled, hoping to bring a smile to her face, but she just frowned more deeply. 

“It wasn’t a waste. It was your passion, and you’ll carry it with you forever.” 

“Not the speech now, Mom.” He rolled his eyes, but she finally returned his smile, however lacking it was. Jaehyun's notorious nose wrinkle had come from her, and he knew that when he couldn't see it, her smile wasn't genuine. He opened his mouth, prepared to say something else, but his mother's quiet voice rose above the silence. 

“No speech. Jae. No speech. I’m happy we’ve finally made it this far.”

That night, when he laid alone in the dark of his room with nothing but his phone screen illuminating his face, he sent Ten a text message.

 _I'm not applying to K-Arts,_ it said simply. 

Jaehyun could have imagined the frown on Ten's face when he received a disappointed _okay, jae_ in response.

* * *

Within the isolation that Jaehyun had created for himself, he added a new rule to that now broken list, hoping to replace that which he had carried with him for as long as he could remember. 

_Never, ever trust anyone else’s words more than you trust your own._ While the other was easy to forget, somehow, Jaehyun knew that he wouldn’t be forgetting the new one anytime soon.

* * *

Anyway, Jung Jaehyun is a Communications major. 

After a sickeningly cramped freshman year camping it out in the school's worst dormitories, Jaehyun and a group of his friends had decided to rent out an apartment not too far from campus- not close enough to walk, but perfectly fine to reach by car, bus, or train- for a price that made the dorm's prices look like it was made for millionaires. It wasn't much, of course; none of them were particularly liquid, and one of them was unemployed, but it had a working kitchen and a fairly functional aircon that sometimes sounded like it was wheezing at the worst hours of the night, and it was their home. 

Firstly, there's Jungwoo- who had been Jaehyun's freshman year roommate and a psychology major- one of Jaehyun's closest friends. However, whenever the topic of majors arose, Jungwoo always makes sure to make his disapproval loud and clear enough that anybody in the room could sense it, regardless of their familiarity with him. Jungwoo himself is a man of fairly tall stature yet seemed to only radiate comfort and generosity, as if a ball of light surrounded his form wherever he goes. Jaehyun remembers how nervous he had been about being away from home for the first time in a college dorm, yet Jungwoo immediately made him feel at home with his cheeky smile and a smooth voice sure to charm anybody who spoke to him. However, there are two sides to every coin; oftentimes Jungwoo's worry found itself manifesting in constant _pestering_. Jaehyun forever has Jungwoo’s nagging voice in his ear, asking him if he likes what he’s doing, and if he’s willing to pursue a career in that field forever. Jaehyun always replies with a nonchalant and dismissive “Absolutely.” Jungwoo always rolls his eyes and makes some sly comment about how they’ll talk about it later. They never do. 

Taeyong- Jaehyun's hyung that he had met in freshman year, a graduate journalism student with a smile so delightful and bright that Jaehyun had wanted nothing but to see it more often- did the exact same thing every time Jaehyun strolled into the cafe a few blocks away from the apartment they shared with Jungwoo and Yuta with his laptop and his textbooks on Tuesdays. Taeyong had worked there since its opening, as he had told Jaehyun once, back when business was nonexistent and he was the only worker there besides the owner. That had been five years ago, though, when Taeyong was eighteen, and now Jaehyun had to sit in the same corner every time he entered the small, corner-in-the-wall coffee shop in order to avoid the morning’s foot traffic to study until his brain throbbed against his skull, a likely combination of both the hard work and multiple cups of coffee that he downed in his hours there. Tuesday was the only day he didn’t have classes- a benefit that he'd only recently become privy to- and he worked on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, so Tuesday and Thursday mornings were the best time for him. Taeyong took full advantage of this, and would nag him when the shop got slow. Jaehyun only ever got half of his intended studying done while he was there, but he never had it in him to find another place to go.

(“You don’t seem to like this shit very much.” Taeyong would say, taking a sip of Jaehyun’s iced americano. “Is it fun, or something? And I just can’t see it on your face?”

“Shut up, and get your mouth off of my straw.” Jaehyun snapped, but there was no real fire behind his words. He snatched the cup away from Taeyong, and the older of the two pouted while he moved to rest his cheek on a closed fist. “We do this every week, man. Who likes studying? Sorry you can’t see the joy on my face while I’m learning about… _rhetoric,_ or whatever the fuck this class is. It’s a requirement.”

Taeyong just nodded ever so slowly and picked up Jaehyun’s drink again. This time, he didn’t stop him.

“Okay.” Taeyong shrugged.)

Yuta would try, too, but not as hard as the others. He’d known Jaehyun for the longest out of the three- since before they both arrived at Hongik, when Yuta was the foreign exchange student a year and a half older than him when Jaehyun was in the ninth grade. Yuta had been there from beginning to end, now a graduate student pursuing a degree in sports medicine (the unemployed one in the house, but with the good excuse of being the captain of their school's soccer team), yet something would stop him from asking Jaehyun life questions at two o’clock in the morning the same way that Jungwoo would. Maybe he just didn't know _how_ to approach the issue (and for that, Jaehyun is grateful), instead opting to offer Jaehyun a beer from the fridge whenever he sensed something going awry. Don't get him wrong, Yuta isn't emotionally stunted or anything; he's probably one of the most radiant people that Jaehyun knows, with a smile to rival Taeyong's. Like Jungwoo, he seems to surround himself with positive feelings. 

And Jaehyun was happy that way.

Because he had his own reprieve, something far far away from the realities of the days that at some point began to blend together into just one into an indecipherable mess.

That reprieve came on Tuesday nights, as soon as the day bled into Wednesday. At midnight, with the moon high in the sky, Hongik University’s premier _Midnight Moonlight_ radio show would begin. The talk of campus and even beyond, _Midnight Moonlight_ was Hongik’s most popular export. Just one anonymous host and his music, spreading his thoughts and weekly playlists across Hongik and the rest of Hongdae.

And that’s where this story starts, in Jaehyun’s bumpy ass bed that he most certainly needed to replace soon, with Jungwoo and Yukhei cackling over some movie in the living room, and Taeyong and Yuta shut up in the latter’s room playing Overwatch or something. It starts with Jaehyun with his head resting on his pitifully hard pillow, his headphones over his head, drowning out all the noises of the world outside of his room. The world outside of _him_.

_“Hey, everyone. I hope this week wasn’t too hard on you. If it was, here’s your relief! Welcome to Midnight Moonlight.”_

Jaehyun’s eyes slid shut, just as they always do, and the world outside of that voice ceased to exist. 

He would open his eyes again in the next hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit 8/28/19 i'm literally so fuckin dumb mm is supposed to be on tuesdays not thursdays Please disregard that stupid mistake
> 
> i hope u enjoyed that... i just felt really inspired and plotted this entire story in like two hours and i'm happy to continue it
> 
> again the next chapters will most definitely be longer, and more in depth i promiseee
> 
> please be patient with me! i wont leave you hanging after the prologue bc that's a dick move but sometimes i might take 3 days sometimes a week sometimes two. but i will come back to u!
> 
> i'll be back in a few days with part one!
> 
> [edit 1/23/20 this chapter sucked i fixed it a little... a lot.]
> 
> [story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hF0px19M3eBanOnSdCMEk?si=4s4cstETQ_uP28bPAilkdg)


	2. maybe fake's what i like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the fates poke their hands into jaehyun's destiny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm a liar! it's been two weeks instead of one. i'm sorry :( but i DID double the word count!
> 
> have fun with this one though. it's the beginning of the A Lot that's gonna come.
> 
> chapter title is from "same ol' mistakes" by rihanna

September was the month of mildly chilly mornings and moderately warm days. Summer was nearing its end, yet Mother Nature couldn't decide whether she was quite ready to usher autumn in with open arms and made her hesitation to accept the new season quite clear.

It was a Wednesday morning, and it was as cold as a winter's dawn would be so much so that one inhale felt like icicles and snowflakes would embed themselves into his lungs. But Jaehyun knew that if he put on more than two layers he may come to regret it as the day progressed, probably around noon, when the sun reached its peak in the sky and chased away all of the frigid air in favor of a toasty and mild warmth.

That was the thing with Jaehyun, too; indecisiveness. Just like the mornings on the cusp of autumn, hot and cold or sunny and rainy, rife with contradiction.

But, much like the other things that ailed him, he thought it best to shove it down into a pit in his soul so deep and expansive that he couldn't remember half of the things he had thrown into it.

But, similarly to how the seasons change in September- albeit with resistance- and with it, the weather, September changed Jaehyun.

It was a Wednesday morning; another day in Jaehyun’s painfully mundane life, and a day that would one day become a testament to the strength of coincidence.

* * *

Jaehyun is woken up by an obnoxiously loud crashing noise and shouting.

He groans as he sits up in his bed, gingerly rubbing his hand against his neck and grimacing in his discomfort. It seems that he had fallen asleep on his back and with his chin to his chest, leaving a faint but still persistent pain to pulse through his upper body.

"What the fuck?" He shouts, squinting as the light from outside peeking through the blinds finally reaches his eyes. A voice calls back to him, muffled by his closed door, but it's high pitched and apologetic. Jungwoo, probably. It seemed to be a painfully normal morning in the Jung-Lee-Kim-Nakamoto household.

It was then that Jaehyun belatedly realizes that he’s still tangled in the cords of his earbuds, wrapped innocuously around his neck and wrists. His phone had fallen from the bed at some point during the night- probably from his tossing and turning- and when he reaches down to grab it, he sighs.

_Fell asleep listening to the radio again._

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed- a quick glance at his phone screen tells him that it's 7:53 am and that his battery percentage is a whopping 5% since he didn't charge it before he fell asleep- and groans at the effort that takes, as well. Jung Jaehyun of Wednesday Morning is starting to hate Jung Jaehyun of Tuesday Night.

He stands up, lifts his arms over his head in a stretch, and cracks his neck once before deciding it's now ample time to go investigate the crash, seeing as any resulting mess would likely have been dealt with at this point.

Jaehyun opens the door to his bedroom and is promptly greeted by more shouting. A delightful Wednesday morning, it was.

"Taeyong is gonna _murder_ you, man." Yuta's voice is calmer and quieter than the other two, but amusement dances through his tone. "Oh, man. You know how much he spent on that thing?"

"It wasn't my fault!" Jungwoo's shrill voice greets Jaehyun's ears as he rounds the corner into the living room, panicked and shaky. "Why the fuck are you even here? When did you get a key?"

Jaehyun enters the living room, and his jaw drops.

White glass shards are scattered over the wooden tile, some chunks visibly larger than others, but irreparable nonetheless. Jungwoo stands in the middle of it, unmoving, his (socked?) feet unable to shift lest he steps on a piece of it. Yuta stands a good meter and a half away from the wreckage, his face red and his eyes screwed shut in his laughter.

After surveying the mess in front of the hallway, Jaehyun turns his gaze towards who seemed to be the perpetrator of this it all: a very amused looking Ten. He sits with his legs crossed on the couch, draped unceremoniously in a hoodie seven sizes too large and (hopefully) a pair of shorts. His black hair hangs over a tired face complete with bloodshot eyes and a blooming bruise on the left side of his chin. When he meets Jaehyun's eyes, he lifts a hand in greeting.

"Jaehyun!" He shouts, before visibly recoiling. His voice must've been too loud for his own ears. "Hey." He continues, quietly.

This is not an uncommon occurrence. Ten is a presence in his life just as persistent as the others, in his very own special Ten Way. He and Jaehyun had met while the latter was still in high school- after he had met Yuta, but before Taeyong in his senior year- and the two hit it off instantly. Over the five or so years that they had known each other (all starting with a very loud and enthusiastic introduction along the lines of _I'm Ten and I'm from Thailand, let's be friends_ greeting Jaehyun immediately upon his return to Korea after his short few years in America) Ten has undeniably brought a light different from anybody else's Jaehyun has ever known into his life.

They're best friends in every meaning of the word; after their hasty introduction, they'd been stuck to each other like peanut butter and jelly. Everywhere Jaehyun went, Ten went, and vice versa. In their grade school years, when Ten would pull a delightfully well-timed prank on somebody else, Jaehyun was never far behind, already planning their getaway. 

(Ask anybody else, and Jaehyun will instantly deny his involvement in any of Ten's shenanigans. That doesn't change the fact that he's usually just as guilty as his counterpart.)

Ten's reckless- almost concerning so; always was, and always will be. Ten is the type to wait until hours remained in the day to write a ten-page research paper, or to wait to study for a test until it was within the hour; he could hop off of the couch and walk through the door 2 hours later, much drunker than he had been in the time that he left, and tell you a story about how he leapt from someone's roof into their swimming pool and then stole two wine glasses from their beverage cabinet. That is, as Jaehyun so affectionately refers to it, the Ten Way. Despite his considerably... carefree way of life and insistence upon living that way for as long as he still walks the earth, Ten, without ever considering otherwise, sticks by Jaehyun's side through thick and thin, good and bad days alike. Ten is a special one.

"What happened to you?" Jaehyun asks, walking into the kitchen and grabbing the broom and dustpan from the wall there. Yuta clearly isn't planning on doing anything except laugh at Jungwoo's agony.

"Oh, you know, I went to Joohyun's and got absolutely fucked. And then at five I got up off of her couch and thought I would drag myself onto yours since I definitely didn't want to go home and hear the lecture Dejun would have surely prepared upon my return. But, on my way up the stairs, I tripped and fell face-first into the concrete. And-" He pauses to dig around in his pocket, pulling out his phone and turning its screen to face the room's other occupants. "-I cracked my phone screen. Not getting this shit fixed anytime soon." Ten frowns.

"You're leaving out one _extremely_ important part of your story." Jungwoo interrupts just as Jaehyun finally gets around to sweeping up the glass laid around his feet. Yuta chuckles again.

"Oh, yeah!" Ten claps his hands together. "So Taeyong let me in on his way out and was like, 'fine, sleep on the couch' so I _did._ But I couldn't fall asleep. So I was just laying here, playing Superstar on my phone, and Jungwoo walked in. And like any guest says when one of their hosts approaches, I said 'hey, I'm on the couch!' and Jungwoo screamed. So it's not my fault, really. The lights were on and everything."

Jaehyun nods slowly, considering. "So, you scared Jungwoo because he didn't see you and now Taeyong's fancy sculpture that he bought in Osaka is now…" He trails off and sweeps the rest of the glass into the dustpan. Jungwoo glances down to make sure that there are no stray shards before taking a step to his left where the carpet was.

"Garbage." Ten finishes solemnly.

"Garbage," Yuta repeats, barely able to squeeze the word out between his laughter.

"A pile of glass." Jungwoo- sweet and sensitive Jungwoo- huffs, staring sadly down at the filled dustpan. "He liked that one a lot. I'd never seen anything like it."

"He did." Jaehyun smiles, trying not to laugh as loudly as Yuta, but still falling short. "He's gonna come for blood."

"Not mine!" Ten interjects from the couch, rubbing his jaw.

Yuta's laughter has finally faded into giggles. "I'd love to see it."

"Now that we're all up at eight on a Wednesday, who wants to go to breakfast?" Ten wiggles his eyebrows, and Jaehyun rolls his eyes in response.

"I'd love to go on a breakfast date, but I have to cover the early shift." Jaehyun glances at the clock that hangs over the television in the living room, observing how its minute hand has just reached five after. "I guess it's good you woke me up."

"Buzzkill." Ten jokes, jumping up off of the couch and heading towards the kitchen, likely to raid their already barren refrigerator. Jaehyun was supposed to have gone shopping on Monday afternoon but forgot. Ten, surely noticing this, sucks his teeth. "You look kinda tired anyway, Jae. Too early to be dealing with me, I bet. Stayed up late last night?"

Jaehyun would like to present _Problem With His Life,_ number seventy-two. Every single student at Hongik University, without fail, knows what Midnight Moonlight is. It’s like an urban legend only in the sense of its popularity and wide range of reception even far away from the university’s campus. To Hongik, Midnight Moonlight is a campus-wide reprieve from tests and the stresses of life as well as the frustrations and obstacles that accompanied them. Jaehyun is, of course, no stranger to these stresses and obstacles. And thus, like hundreds of other Hongik students, Jaehyun too plugged in his earbuds to listen to the radio show’s MC go on about his week. Jaehyun, just like those other students, fell asleep listening to whatever song that the MC decided to play at the end of his broadcast.

So maybe MM is more like a podcast than a radio show; it’s all talking, except for the one song at the end. And just because everyone on campus _knows_ about it, not everyone _likes_ it.

 _“It’s weird,”_ Taeyong had said once, nursing a glass of cheap wine in his right hand and reclining on their loveseat. “ _Like, the dude doesn’t even say his name. He’s all like, when you really think about it, my name doesn’t matter. Okay? You’re a college student hosting a radio show, not some… fuckin’ celebrity, y’know?”_ Taeyong had been far past tipsy at that point, and Jaehyun had considered removing the alcohol from the room. “ _He’s all… uh…”_

 _“Fake deep.”_ Yuta had nodded, visibly falling asleep.

 _“Mhm. Fake deep.”_ Taeyong cosigned.

So none of Jaehyun’s roommates knew about his Tuesday night habit. And he was, like, perfectly fine with it. Absolutely fine with keeping another secret.

“I just couldn’t really fall asleep, you know?” Jaehyun opts to say, rubbing the back of his head with his hand sheepishly.

Ten glances up from where he’s got his hands on some orange juice. “Hm. Shit excuse. Even with a hangover, I can still see right through you. But I’ll take it.” He finishes, pouring the liquid into a glass. Ten was right- it was a shit excuse- but Jaehyun had nothing better to say. Ten could see through a lie with ten layers and a lock if he tried. There’s really no point in trying to lie to him.

Jaehyun shoots daggers in Ten’s direction. “Make sure you wash that.”

“ _Make sure you wash that,_ ” Ten counters with a mockery of Jaehyun’s voice. “Yeah, yeah, pretty boy. I’ll wash the glass. Go get ready for work.”

"Tell the books I said hello," Yuta smirks, and Jungwoo is still pouting in the corner.

"Of course I will," Jaehyun sticks his tongue out and starts back towards his room.

He knows that there are a billion other places he could be working that are worse than a small bookstore in the middle of the city. Among the dozens of inconveniences and troubles in Jaehyun's life, the bookstore- (not so) cleverly named _Antiquaria,_ sold books both old and new, decrepit and fresh, off of its shelves. Just like how Midnight Moonlight had become a sort of escape from the realities of Jaehyun’s day, _Antiquaria_ acted as a stoplight. When he stepped through its old, creaky doors, the lights flickered to yellow and told all of his ailments that they could resume their torture of him only once he stepped back out. Sometimes, silence and a long book was all he needed.

He closes his bedroom door, squeezes into his work outfit, and prepares to step into the day.

* * *

Jaehyun, after much introspection and maybe a few bowls of ice cream on his living room couch, is not a believer in Fate with a capital "F".

Because- as he has so nicely reminded himself over the years- that's the business of children. Fate is a Disney storyline. Fate isn’t _real_.

In Greek mythology, there were three Fates: Clotho, who spun the thread of life. Lachesis drew the string out, and the final Fate, named Atropos, cut the thread.

It seems as though the Fates that he disregarded had a different plan for him, regardless of his own disbelief and ignorance of their existence. Maybe Clotho isn’t quite finished with spinning the thread of _his_ life.

* * *

Jaehyun steps into the elevator with a tired sigh passing through his lips. Part of him is thankful- the elevator had been slapped with a nice big OUT OF ORDER sign for the better part of last week, and carrying seven heavy grocery bags up five flights of stairs is not and will never be Jaehyun’s forte- but another part resents having to make his way to the train station on a Wednesday morning before nine a.m.

He halfheartedly pokes at the _Lobby_ button on the panel before sitting back and waiting for the door to close, but just as the thick metal doors are about to slide shut, a hand shoves its way in between them. Startled, Jaehyun glances up and-

It’s his neighbor, the nice, respectable grad student who somehow managed to live with only one roommate next door. He looks like he’s out of breath, and he stumbles into the elevator like he’d just run a mile. Jaehyun blinks.

His neighbor is tall- taller than even Jaehyun himself, who towered over a fair amount of his friends and _especially_ Ten- and he was well dressed, on top of that: the lengths of his legs were greatly accentuated by the black slacks that he had on, and a loose button-up hung from his shoulders, white as snow and looking a lot like it cost at least one of Jaehyun's paychecks. The two had never spoken, despite having a common living arrangement for nearly two years, but that doesn’t mean that Jaehyun’s never _looked_. He’s got a small mouth and almond-shaped eyes, wrinkled as he catches his breath, and black hair cut short to frame the rest of his face. Jaehyun had noted on several occasions- with Jungwoo’s affirmation, of course- that their neighbor was an attractive man, and Jaehyun didn’t hand that compliment out lightly.

“Uh,” Jaehyun mutters. That was sure a great conversation starter. “Uh… are you okay?” He raises an eyebrow when he doesn’t receive a response. Jaehyun’s starting to wonder why he thought that covering Seulgi’s shift would be a good idea.

_Wait, fuck. He's wearing Airpods._

His neighbor sends a quick glimpse in Jaehyun's direction before he opens his mouth in an "O", seemingly noticing Jaehyun for the first time. He reached up to pull one of the earbuds from his ear.

"Hey. Sorry, I didn't hear you."

His voice is as delightful as the rest of him, Jaehyun notes.

"It's all good. I was just asking if you were okay. You kinda… sprinted into the elevator." Jaehyun tilts his head, awaiting the other's answer.

"See," His neighbor- _god_ , Jaehyun has to ask for his name- frowned a little bit. "You know the ahjumma in 5D? Short, a little angry. I'm sure you know the one. Kind of impossible to miss her."

Damn right, Jaehyun knows which one. Their floor only houses four apartments, and across from Jaehyun's very own 5A lives a very, _very_ opinionated and loud woman in the form of Mrs. Cha. Everyone in the _building_ knows Mrs. Cha. Jaehyun nods.

"Well, she's been trying to set me up with her granddaughter, or something. I've never really stuck around for long enough to hear all of the details, but I kinda broke into a mad dash when I saw you get into the elevator so I could have an excuse… not to talk about her granddaughter."

Jaehyun chuckles as the elevator finally reaches the lobby. "Not your thing?"

"No, not my thing." Jaehyun's neighbor echoes. He's silent for a moment as the doors slide open. "I don't think we've ever really spoken, the two of us. But we've been neighbors for ages."

"Almost two years." The man nods in agreement and the two step out of the elevator into the lobby at the same time.

"Well, then, it's about time, don't you think?" Neighbor holds out his hand and delivers a smile so dazzling that Jaehyun took a second to reciprocate. Jaehyun hopes that the smile he sends back in his direction is equally bright. "Suh Youngho to some, but Johnny to most."

Jaehyun places his hand into the firm grasp. "Jung Jaehyun." He finally has a name for the face.

The two exchange their goodbyes with promises to say hello to each other again in the coming days, and, just as he had prepared to do earlier, Jaehyun set off in the direction of the train station to head to _Antiquaria._ When he strides into the empty shop precisely thirty-two minutes later-luckily, he made his way there with no train delays, for once- he sets up shop behind the register, his feet on the counter, and huffs a sigh so heavy he feels like his soul is escaping his body through it.

Such is life, he tells himself, sitting in empty bookstores for hours on end with nothing to keep you company save for the abundant dust bunnies hidden in every corner and under every shelf. _Antiquaria_ , for all its merits, is surprisingly still not out of business. 

Jaehyun spares a glance at his watch. It's 9:06. He's been here for six minutes. 

"God," Jaehyun groans to nobody in particular, his voice echoing slightly throughout the empty building. The books, of course, have nothing to say in response. There's nothing much for him to do; the door's unlocked, and the register is ready to accept any transaction, no matter how unlikely.

(In fact, the owner had recently bestowed upon them an Apple Pay reader, against Jaehyun and Seulgi's recommendations, because nobody shopping at _Antiquaria_ is looking to pay with their phone. His boss said that they could all agree to disagree, and Jaehyun had nothing to say to that. Now the reader sits politely on top of their other scanner, smugly staring at Jaehyun as he looks out to the rest of the books ahead of him. He frowns.)

Jaehyun, however, _does_ work in a bookstore, no matter how unpopular. They get new books- mostly the popular titles, but new books nonetheless- which account for most of their sales. He spares a glance at the door- it, of course, will not be opening any time soon, and if it does, he'd hear the bell- and lowers his feet to stand up, stretching his arms as if he had been sitting there for more than six minutes. With that, he strides past the front shelves- the ones filled with the recognizable names- towards the back of the store, where the dust is so heavy that neither Jaehyun nor his coworkers care to brush it off, and their boss doesn't give them stress over it. When he reaches the very last shelf, obscured by the shadows cast by the yellow light emitted from a tiny desk lamp on a coffee table, he reaches forward with one of his hands to drag his finger through the dust collected over the spines of novels and stories, gathering a small pile as he goes. When he stops, his finger is resting on just one book.

When he pulls it toward him, an aged book now rests in his hands: _No Longer Human_ by Osamu Dazai.

He walks back through the store with it clasped carefully in his grasp, settling back in the same chair that he had stood from not long ago, putting his legs up once more, and opens the book.

 _"Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness,"_ it reads. " _Everything passes. That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything passes."_

There is a twinge somewhere, deep in Jaehyun's heart and in his soul, that wants to refute Dazai's claim. He quiets it, just as quickly as it rose to challenge him, and his eyes continue to scroll aimlessly over the pages.

He can deny if he wanted to, but Clotho was not quite finished weaving his thread of Life.

* * *

Jaehyun’s phone rings as soon as his painfully long and slow shift at _Antiquaria_ comes to a close. He ignores it for a second- whoever it is can wait a few more seconds- while he finishes shelving some misplaced books that had been on tables and incorrect book carts. After the fourth or so ring, Jaehyun finally digs into his pocket, swipes the answer button, and brings the phone up to his ear without even checking the caller ID.

“Hello?” He drones.

“Geez, don’t you sound happy to hear me.” Taeyong’s voice greets his ears, painfully cheery. Jaehyun can almost hear the smile in his voice, and _that_ definitely meant that there's a story to be told about it. “How was your shift?”

“It was… eh. Slow as shit.” Jaehyun answers truthfully as he paces towards the front of the store to grab his stuff and _leave_.

“That’s to be expected,” Taeyong says. There’s a shuffling noise on the other line. “You heading home now?”

“Yeah.” Jaehyun cards his free hand through his hair- which reminds him that he in fact _also_ forgot to pick up some more brown hair dye from the store last week on the exact same day he forgot to get the groceries- and glances up at the grandfather clock in the front of the shop. 3:03 PM. “Why, what’s up?”

“Nothing serious. Meet me at the noodle place down the street from the house?”

“By ‘me’, do you mean everybody?” Jaehyun questions as he gestures _goodbye_ to his coworker, Youngjae (who had only arrived a matter of minutes ago), with a nod of his head. In the next second, he’s pushing through the front door. “I know Ten probably pestered you until you gave in.”

“Something like that," Taeyong laughs. “I kinda just wanted to take a nap when I got back, but Yuta told me that Ten wants to go out, and you know that Ten always gets what he wants. Eventually.”

“That’s usually how it goes,” Jaehyun nods, before reminding himself that Taeyong can’t see him through the phone. The afternoon sun burns lazily against his skin as he saunters past the shops on the street, filled with clothes and trinkets. He’s happy he didn’t wear that thick shirt this morning.

“Don’t be late.” The older of the two teases, and Jaehyun hears a door close.

“I won’t.” Jaehyun opens in his mouth in preparation to say his goodbyes, but suddenly, something sharp rises to the forefront of his mind.

“Hey, uh… have you gone home yet?” Jaehyun feels a little smirk tickle at the corners of his mouth.

“Erm.” Taeyong pauses for a second, probably sensing the mirth in Jaehyun’s tone. The younger can envision him tipping his head to the side. “No? I just got off. I was gonna head straight to the restaurant.” Another pause. “Why, should I?”

“No!” Jaehyun responds with a little too much force. A woman he walks past on the street flinches, and he smiles meekly as an apology. “No, it’s fine. I’ll meet you there, don’t worry about it.”

“O...kay.” He was probably scrunching up his face. “See you there?”

“See you there.”

* * *

True to his word, Jaehyun arrives at the noodle place five minutes after exiting the station and immediately spots his friends at the table in the back. In all the years that they had been coming to the restaurant, they would always sit at the same table tucked into the far left corner, half-obscured with shadows. Most would rather they sit in the front, where the windows shine bright sunlight to illuminate the tables, but after all this time, it's _their_ table. It has been the location of numerous lunch meetups, teary studying sessions, and drunken dinners alike.

Jungwoo perks his head up upon Jaehyun’s arrival and waves at him frantically, as if Jaehyun wasn’t already walking in the table’s direction. To Jungwoo’s immediate left sat Yukhei- Jungwoo’s partner and the newest addition to their ragtag group of college students- and next to him is a rather sleepy-looking Yuta. It's a stark contrast to his early morning state of existence.

Jaehyun plops down in the chair next to Ten, who nudges him with his shoulder. “Where’s Sicheng?” He questions, pulling his phone from his back pocket and tossing it with little care to the stone table. Taeyong winces.

“Work!” Yuta suddenly perks up at the mention of Sicheng. “He’s covering for Sungwoon today.” It seems to have been a busy day for all of them.

“That’s too bad.” Jaehyun frowns. Sicheng has shown up to all of their social gatherings despite his insistence that the group is far too loud for his liking. Jaehyun thinks that he secretly admires their rambunctious natures. The man in question _has_ been picking up more shifts than usual lately, according to Yuta. Instead of lingering on it for too long, he immediately spins around to face Taeyong. “So, Oh Great Lee Taeyong, you seemed quite enthusiastic to have all of us here today.”

A smile spreads across Taeyong’s face, and he opens his mouth, clearly ready to chronicle some dramatic story in a fashion most fitting to him, but before he could say even one word, a waitress arrives at the right of their table asking for their orders. Taeyong deflates. 

Jaehyun orders his usual without even glancing at the menu, and the rest of his friends follow suit. Every single one of their eyes are focused on Taeyong.

“Okay, so get this.” Taeyong starts, his excitement full throttle. The other five heads at the table nod for him to continue, hanging onto his every word like children to a storybook. “Guess who fuckin’ came in today.”

“Who?” Ten asks for all of them.

The tension around the table is so thick and tight that it could be sliced with a knife.

“Kim Dongyoung.” Taeyong whisper-shouts the name, and everybody except Yukhei gasps dramatically.

“Dongyoung?” Ten screeches. A few people look in their direction, and he sinks down into his seat. “Dongyoung, who moved to fucking America and led me to believe I would never have to see him again?”

“Fuck.” Jaehyun and Jungwoo both say at the same time.

“No shit?” Yuta asks in disbelief. “He’s back already? Wow.” He crosses his arms and knits his eyebrows in confusion. “That doesn’t make any sense. Time flies.”

Yukhei blinks. “Who’s Dongyoung?”

The table’s other inhabitants ignore him completely. Taeyong continues. “Like, he comes into the shop and he’s talking to fuckin’ Moon Taeil. The one who’s doing that student teaching thing at that private school in Itaewon. And he sees me, and he’s all like, _oh, Lee Taeyong, long time no see, how are you, how are your friends._ And I laugh awkwardly and say, _hi Dongyoung, everything’s fine._ And he laughs at _me_ and says, _haha, everybody just calls me Doyoung these days_.”

Taeyong is interrupted again by the arrival of their food. That's what they loved about _Fideo_ , quick service and quick fulfillment, things that mean a lot to broke and drunk college students at 11 pm. The six of them thank the servers, but all except for Yukhei leave their food untouched. He stabs into the bowl and adjusts his earlier question. “Who’s Doyoung?”

“All you need to know is that I hate them." Ten turns up his nose and pushes his bowl a few inches away from his face, pout prevalent.

"Who's 'them?'" Yukhei asked, too focused on his noodles to really even glance up.

"He means Kim Dongyoung and Company. Doyoung. Whatever." Taeyong sighs, sparing a glance at the fuming Thai man. "He and Ten have had a childish feud going on ever since the tenth grade, apparently. The rest of us kind of got involved with it more and more as the years passed. At this point, I don’t even remember why.”

"Ninth!" Ten snaps, slapping his hand down onto the table and startling Yukhei enough to move him away from his bowl. "It was the ninth grade."

"We've all heard the story by now." Jungwoo rests his chin on his palm. "Doyoung-"

"Doyoung and Taeil were spawns of Satan in high school, you have no idea." The fury dripping from Ten's voice shocks none of them. It's been years of this and more. "Satan."

Yes, they all know the story just as well as they know how to walk and how to grab things with their hands; Jaehyun's paraphrasing, but Ten was a fairly naïve and pleasant student in their ninth-grade year, albeit with a large personality as well. Kim Dongyoung had been very much the same, and as a result, he and Ten clashed on various occasions. On one of these occasions, though, after everybody had returned from winter break, the tension between the two snapped like a taut wire and exploded into a frenzy. The catalyst itself wasn’t that big of a deal- Ten had bumped shoulders with Doyoung in the hallway, and Doyoung shoved him back. They fought, and both found themselves in the principal's office and with a month's long detention sentence. And so, ever since, they'd hated each other with as much fervency as two opposing forces on a battlefield. Doyoung got an A on a test, and Ten would have to score one-hundred percent the next time. Doyoung got three gifts on Valentine's day, and Ten would scheme to get four.

Dongyoung had moved to America about two years back on some weird exchange program- Jaehyun didn't really ask many questions. He'd thought that he would never have to deal with him and Ten's rivalry ever again. It seemed as though Fate had another plan.

"Moon Taeil?" Yukhei's loud voice brings Jaehyun back to the reality of the situation. "He's the nicest person I've ever met. He’s best friends with Kun, too. They’re all very nice." Yukhei blinks again, but flinches back when Ten stands abruptly and points his finger in Yukhei’s face.

"It's an act."

“Ten, calm down.” Jaehyun sighs, finally pulling his bowl towards himself and opening a pair of chopsticks. “We’re in a noodle restaurant.”

Ten sighs, and after a moment of hesitation, sits back down in his chair. He opens his chopsticks as well. "Just for you, pretty boy."

"So is he like, _back_ back?" Jungwoo mutters around his monumentally large bite of food. Taeyong cringes, but answers nonetheless.

"Seems like it. He said that he would see me around. Doesn't sound like someone going back to America anytime soon."

Ten curses and pouts into his bowl before taking a tiny bite of it. Jaehyun definitely has to talk to him when they aren't in such a public setting. That's where he truly gets candid, away from everybody else so it was just him and Jaehyun. Love confessions and personal vendetta alike have passed through the air on those days with the promise to never leave the room they were thrown out into.

"I finally talked to our neighbor today." Jaehyun attempts to change the subject in an effort to clear the table of the dark cloud that has settled over it, definitely finding its source at Ten's frowned up face. "The one in 5B, I mean."

"Oh! The tall and handsome one." Yuta hops up at the opportunity to shift focus, somehow already halfway done with his bowl. Even Yukhei hadn't advanced that quickly, and he'd gotten a head start.

"Mhm," Jaehyun affirms, and flickers his gaze towards the still pouting Ten. "We ran into each other in the elevator 'cause he was trying to outrun Mrs. Cha."

"Tried to set him up with her granddaughter?"

"Precisely." He nods. "He seems like a nice guy, though. I would set him up with _my_ granddaughter."

"Ooh." Ten sits up, finally. Bingo. "So he's your type."

Jaehyun's chronicled list of Life Issues and Questions just kept seeming to rise to the surface as the day progressed.

Here are the facts:

Jaehyun has never had a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, for that matter.

Jaehyun _has_ , on the other hand, _been_ with a handful of boys and girls, but mostly in his first two years of university. And that was that: he spent one night with one person and then when the morning came, they would be back in their bed, or he would be back in his. There was nothing more than _brevity_. For him, it all passed in less than an hour.

Jaehyun has also not _been_ with anybody since the school year began a few months ago. That's another story, for another time.

"Maybe," Jaehyun says, opting for the most cryptic and least revealing answer. Johnny and Jaehyun had spent less than a minute together in an elevator. Nothing more, and nothing less.

 _Everything passes_ , the book had read. _Everything passes._

* * *

"Where's my fucking sculpture?"

Wait, that's right. Jaehyun _had_ felt like he'd forgotten something while the lot of them had been in the restaurant. By Jungwoo and Yuta's shocked faces, they had forgotten also.

"Oh, fuck." Ten- who had followed them home instead of going to his own apartment because he's forgotten his keys, again- starts cackling behind the rest of them. "I forgot about that."

"Forgot about what?" Taeyong snaps, rounding on the rest of them still standing sheepishly in the entry hallway. "What did you do?"

"Well, you see." Jungwoo gulps. "You see. It's all Ten's fault."

"Hey!"

* * *

When Jaehyun finally returns to his bedroom at eight, exactly twelve hours following his unceremonious awakening, his exhaustion catches up with him all at once. He reminds himself that he should shower, but the lethargic parts of his brain insist upon waiting until the morning. Jaehyun can't agree more.

He first takes off his socks and then his pants and shirt, tossing them carelessly into his laundry basket and plopping down on his bed lazily, his calves still dangling over the edge.

Jaehyun closes his eyes, and he thinks of last night.

_"Life isn't all 'day,'" MM had said, his voice a steady and grounding force. "You have to have some nights too. The sun is always shining. It lights up the moon, and it lights up the day. The sun is always there. You could be in the darkest night of your life and the sun is still there. It never will let you be alone. It always shines so that you can shine with it. It won't let you be dull._

_"The night comes, but the day will always come back after a certain amount of time. Some people love the day, and some people love the night. Both of those people will get what they want, because night always comes back at one point and so does day. The night will roll around with its windy darkness, but hours from its arrival, the day will come around and kick it out to take its place. It’s interesting how quickly the transition happens; one moment, the sky is darker than obsidian, but the next, shades of orange and pink are streaking across it and sunlight is streaming through your window trying to wake you up._

_"Those obstacles- the nighttime- will force you to grow, force you to change. And it's not your fault to feel lost, it's not your fault that you don't know what to do. It's not your fault that you seek the day. But the night isn't as scary when you know how to navigate it, right? If I can speak to you in this night, then surely everything will be okay," MM chuckled._

_"My song for this week is End of a Day by Jonghyun. Listen to it well, and carry the words with you. This has been Midnight Moonlight. I'll see you again in a week, right?" His voice faded away, and the song began to play._

He thinks of Midnight Moonlight, of _End of a Day_ , and of _No Longer Human_.

_At the end of a tiring day,_

_Even if the sun has already come up,_

_I'm finally closing my eyes._

Jaehyun falls into a deep sleep. Just like everything else, he reassures himself, this will pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiii hope u liked it, thank u so much for reading!
> 
> the last part is a quote from end of a day by jonghyun. that's one song i can always listen to when i'm tired!
> 
> i'll see you soon, but no promises because then i feel rushed and then i write like shit... but i won't leave you hanging!
> 
> (edit 1 jan 2020 > not having a beta is so bad for me i read this again and i was clearly having some issues with subject verb agreement i'm sorry)
> 
> [story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hF0px19M3eBanOnSdCMEk?si=4s4cstETQ_uP28bPAilkdg)


	3. oh, if you love me (won’t you please reply?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So are you. I can see through you like a glass, pretty boy. We're much too similar, you and I. Maybe that's where the fault lies."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO i am so sorry for my absence.. lichrally chose the worst time to start a fic i just started classes... anyway this is part one of a two part chapter, i was gonna write it all into one but i decided against it... enjoyy!!
> 
> also this is super unedited since i just wanted to post it. Sorey <3
> 
> chapter title from dirty computer by janelle monae!

Jaehyun stirs on Thursday morning with a headache, and for no apparent reason, Ten on his bedroom floor wrapped in two or three separate blankets and with his head resting on one of the pillows from the living room couch. 

He huffs and brings a hand up to his forehead. The skin there is warm, warmer than usual, and his brain seems to send a pulse back to his palm to once again remind him of its pain. Nothing could make this week any more dissatisfying than a surprise visit from Mr. Illness. Jaehyun inhales deeply, finding his sinuses to be clear, and rubs at his temples. 

Ten snores so loudly that the sound catches in his throat. Jaehyun sends a glare over to his sleeping form and contemplates kicking him.

After his brief moment of consideration, Jaehyun stands up and walks the three or four steps over to Ten’s impromptu blanket cocoon- a result of their janky heating system, probably. Jaehyun reminds himself that he has to get that fixed- and nudges Ten’s shoulder with one of his feet. After waiting for one or two seconds, he tries again, a bit harder. Ten rouses with bleary eyes.

“What?” He groans, rolling over to fix Jaehyun with a glare. Jaehyun glares back at him just the same.

“You’re on _my_ floor. Why are you even here?” He raises an eyebrow. “You haven’t gone home for like, two days. Are you avoiding something?” 

Ten pouts and plops his head back down onto the pillow. “I’m not avoiding anything.” His already fairly quiet voice is muffled by the padding. A bird squawks outside of Jaehyun’s window.

“That was convincing.” Jaehyun counters, rocking back to sit on his bed. Ten rolls back over to face him. In his expression is a quiet sort of frustration; his eyebrows are furrowed, and he's biting at his bottom lip. A small bead of blood rises from the area.

“Hm.” Is all he replied with, not ceasing in his biting. Jaehyun frowns. It isn’t like Ten to refuse to launch into some tangent about something. He finally ceases the brutal assault of his lips to sit up, the blanket crumpling down from his shoulders into a heap around his waist. He twists around to crack his back- the sound echoing in the nearly silent room in a disgusting manner- and turns back to look at Jaehyun once more. There was that frustration, again. 

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun asks, now worried. Though their relationship hinged almost entirely on poorly executed jokes and pitiful rants about the sad conditions of their college lives these days, there was still a good percentage that consisted of Talks. Like any good relationship- platonic or otherwise- nothing could be _good_ one hundred percent of the time. But with _Ten_ \- and Jaehyun says this hesitantly- it seemed like it was. No matter the severity of a situation, he still found a way to somehow write it off as a joke. A minor inconvenience that could be handled in a matter of seconds.

Failing a test that counted for a considerable amount of his overall grade? A laughing matter. Getting so drunk- frequently, at that- that he can’t remember where he was or who he was with? Unimportant. 

And even if it wasn’t handled, Jaehyun could never know, because Ten would pretend like it had been. For someone who was so _smart_ and so _talented_ , Ten found himself in mess after mess after mess. In a sense, Ten and Jaehyun were similar, but of course, Jaehyun could never _admit_ to that. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Ten starts, and there it is. The I’m Gonna Write This Off Because I Don’t Want You To Be Concerned About Me. Jaehyun’s an expert at the method. “But Kunhang and I got into a fight. It was a little bit of a shitshow.”

Just like Jaehyun, Ten lived in an apartment that is probably Too Crowded in normal people standards, but Just Right for college students. Ten had four roommates of his own: Xiao Dejun, nicknamed Xiaojun by the rest of their fairly vague friend group, who was a biology major; Qian Kun, resident good-hearted person with the warmest smile in the world and early childhood education major; Dong Sicheng, Ten’s fellow dance major who probably spent more time with his head on Yuta’s shoulder than with his head on his own pillow, though he would never admit to it; and finally, Wong Kunhang, a sophomore visual arts major. 

“What about?” Jaehyun squints, and Ten shrinks away from his harsh gaze. 

“Like I said, no big deal.” He shrugs sheepishly. Ten isn’t _sheepish_. 

“If it wasn’t a big deal you wouldn’t be on my floor. Spill.” 

“Alright, fine, fine.” Ten huffs, and cracks his neck in a similar manner to his back. Jaehyun cringes, and Ten at least has the decency to look apologetic. “Okay, so. You know how I told you that I went to Joohyun’s place the night before last and got fucked up. So like, maybe I did the exact same thing last Tuesday.”

Jaehyun glares daggers at Ten- since many of their Talks consisted of Jaehyun begging Ten to give his self-destructive lifestyle a rest- and Ten proceeds to smile awkwardly and lower his gaze. 

“Yeah, yeah. So when I got home at like, two am, I accidentally broke a glass in the kitchen. Kunhang was sitting in the living room, finishing a paper or whatever, and we got into a little argument about my, and I quote, ‘stupid fucking behavior.’ We woke Kun up because of how loud we were being, and he kind of diffused the situation, but Kunhang said he’s sick and tired of what I’m doing. Of _me_. He still won’t fuckin’ look at me. Xiaojun’s really disappointed in me too, and even though Kun and Sicheng won’t say anything to my face, I know they are as well.” Ten lifts his eyes back up to meet Jaehyun’s. “And from the look I’m getting right now, I think that you agree with them.”

Jaehyun _does_ agree with them. He’s doing that thing that people do subconsciously- calling out other people for their unhealthy behavior while still actively participating in the same behavior. Ten and Jaehyun both coped in their own ways. Jaehyun pushes this to the back of his mind.

“I do.” Jaehyun settles for, resting the weight of his body on his hands. “Agree with them, I mean.”

Ten chuckles under his breath, a bittersweet sound, as he pulls his legs up to wrap his arms around them. “I knew you would.”

“So you didn’t want to tell me about it.” He guesses, and Ten nods.

“Bingo!” He smirks. “Then we would bicker a little bit and we would get over it and go out for lunch or something. Let’s get that process started now.”

Something fills Jaehyun up at that point. Anger, maybe. Perhaps it’s because of his unfortunate morning headache, or the dreary mood that had settled over his being for the past several days. It doesn’t matter, really, what it is. It just isn’t good for either of them.

“I can’t keep letting you come over, again and again, knowing you’re going to walk right back out and keep doing the same thing you did to make you walk in.” Jaehyun is off of his hands now, waving them in front of his person. “Ten-”

“Please don’t give me a lecture. It’s Thursday morning. I came here to _avoid-_ ”

“You can’t avoid all of your issues. How can I call myself your best friend if I let you go out there and _hurt_ your-” 

“I’m not hurting myself!” Ten snaps, suddenly. The frustration that once marred his expression is replaced with a bright red fury, and Jaehyun recoils a little bit, unused to that sort of reaction. Ten doesn’t pull his punches. “I’m fine. I keep telling you all that I’m fine. Why doesn’t anyone want to fucking listen to me?” He unwraps his arms from around his legs and moves to stand up, kicking the blankets away from his ankles. 

Jaehyun feels that emotion- yeah, that’s anger. That’s aggravation, outrage. Something ugly, something that he’s never directed at _Ten_ , of all people. Ten seems to return this emotion in full, and Jaehyun stands up just the same. Whatever had been stirring in Jaehyun’s mind for the past few days seemed like it finally wanted to take itself out on somebody. 

“You’ve been acting like a complete dumbass for this past couple of years. Like you’ve lost all of your ambition, all of your intuition. You don’t give a shit about anything except instant gratification. You’re failing half of your classes. And that’s _okay_ to you?”

Ten sneers. “So now Jung Jaehyun is gonna tell me about giving a shit about what’s going on in the outside world? The master of ignoring advice and worry is gonna lecture me now?”

Jaehyun reels back. “Don’t turn this on me.” 

“It’s impossible _not_ to. How the fuck are you gonna tell me that I’m a dumbass while you’re doing the same thing? You’re a dumbass too, then.” Jaehyun had never seen this level of virulence from Ten before. From each of his words dripped a considerable amount of venom.

“You’re missing the point.” Jaehyun suddenly feels like he was reflecting that sheepish look Ten had given him only minutes ago, recoiling away from the anger that had taken him over, if only for a few seconds. Disgust- at himself- suddenly replaces the flames. Nothing like this had ever come between them, but maybe it should have. In minutes, the joking atmosphere about the room had morphed into a horrific bastardization of what it was meant to be.

“Then what’s the point, Jaehyun? Huh?” Ten was standing closer, now. Looking closely, Jaehyun can see the tears in his bloodshot eyes, waiting for him to blink so that they can be shed. Part of him wants to stop and breathe, to apologize, but that defensive part of his brain- the one he hated with a fiery passion, the one he curses, the one that keeps him away from letting his friends inside of his head- rears its ugly head. Jaehyun pushes that guilt down into a dark place and regretfully opens his mouth once again. 

“You always try to deflect from what's wrong with you to focus on me. Every single fucking time we have this conversation. I’m sick of having it. You don't want anyone else to see that you're about to fucking implode. Stop thinking that I need to be miserable just because you are. There's nothing wrong, Ten. I'm fine." Jaehyun's voice had risen in volume, vibrating uncomfortably through his ears. He knows he’s only repeating the words that Ten had just said, And from the look in Ten’s eyes, he knows it too. Their conversation is going nowhere but in circles.

Ten is seemingly stunned into silence, blinking his red eyes until the tears that had welled up there have vanished. His face is scrunched up in an incomprehensible sort of anger and pain, the kind that makes Jaehyun want to reel back and apologize and envelop him in a warm embrace, but the words had already been spoken and released into the air between them. In all their years of friendship, they had never fought like this. 

"Yeah, there's shit that's wrong with me." Ten's voice comes out grated and forced as he finally admits _something_ , however minimal, but he pushes on regardless. "Shit’s wrong with all of us. I like to think I’m subtle about it, but… y’know. That doesn’t matter, though. I can see that you're hurting. I can see how much fucking pain that you're in. I never bother you about it, because I don't want to make it worse, and maybe that's on me. Maybe if both of us were more aggressive, something would actually change, y’know? Jae-" Ten pauses, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fists. The anger seemed to slowly ebb away from him too. A silent sort of acceptance took him over instead. "Jae. I might be about to implode, from all these years, but…" 

He stops abruptly, swinging his hand over to Jaehyun’s bedside table next to them to grab his wallet and phone to stuff them into his pockets. Jaehyun hadn’t even noticed they were there. When Ten glances back up at him, suddenly Jaehyun could feel everything. He could see the dark bags under Ten’s eyes that he hadn’t noticed before, only emphasized by the now inflamed and red skin around them. The bruise on his jaw was still there- fading, but present. He looked tired and defeated, a look on him that Jaehyun isn’t quite used to. Ten turns his back on Jaehyun, clearly preparing to leave, and his hands follow his personal items in shoving themselves into his pockets. His shoulders hunch. 

"So are you. I can see through you like a glass, pretty boy. We're much too similar, you and I. Maybe that's where the fault lies." He audibly swallows. "You said I’ve lost my ambition and my intuition. Maybe I have. But so have you. Maybe we both need to stop destroying ourselves for nothing more than our pride.” 

Jaehyun is silent, unable to find words to respond. Ten, who is clearly expecting this, just shakes his head and paces over to the door to grasp its knob. When he turns it, he pauses, and for a second Jaehyun thinks that he might turn back and spare him a glance. But that moment quickly passes, and before Jaehyun knows it, he sees the white door close behind Ten and hears the slam of the one that leads out of the apartment. He’s left there, standing, _like a dumbass_. 

_Am I?_ He asks himself. _Self-destructing. Am I like Ten?_

* * *

He doesn’t know how long he stands there. Could have been one minute or a dozen. He’s only roused from his state of confusion when he hears a soft knock at his door, and he barely even hears himself when he murmurs for whomever it is to _come in_. Blond hair adorns the head that pokes through the crack- Jungwoo, he notes- before a voice just as gentle as the knock fills the empty space. 

“What just happened?” Jungwoo’s voice always felt like a lullaby, calming even in the worst of moments, and even at the loudest volume. Jaehyun glances up to meet his eyes. It’s in that moment that he notices that he’s still standing, and moves to plop back down onto his bed. He bounces a little bit when he does. Jungwoo raises a concerned eyebrow.

“Well.” It is about all he can muster, in his weak voice. Jungwoo takes the initiative and steps all the way into the room. He’s still wearing his pajamas, the ones covered in little cartoon koalas, and on his feet are a pair of Rilakkuma slippers. Jaehyun realizes that he probably woke him up. A glance at his clock tells him that it’s only nine twenty-five, and Jungwoo doesn’t have classes on Thursdays, and he always takes advantage of that to sleep in for as long as he can. For the second time that morning, Jaehyun is overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. There’s an apology on the tip of his tongue, but Jungwoo starts to speak before he can even get a word in.

“Did you and Ten just have a fight? Is it about him staying here for two nights in a row? I told him to go home, but he insisted on it. That seemed a little severe for something like that, though.” Jungwoo blinks, grasping the fact that he’s ranting. “What just happened?” He repeats.

“Yeah.” Jaehyun nods. “We just got into a fight.”

“Okay,” Jungwoo says, and moves to sit on Jaehyun’s bed next to him. Jaehyun averts his eyes. “What about?”

“Uh. He’s been making some bad decisions lately, I guess.” Jaehyun settles for, shutting his eyes for a moment.

“He has.” Jungwoo agrees and leans back. “Taeyong was just telling me how worried he is about him.”

“Taeyong?”

“Mhm. He let Ten in yesterday, remember?” Jungwoo smiles. “He’s still pretty upset about the sculpture. I’ve gotta make it up to him somehow, even though he said not to worry about it. But even in his frustration, he told me that this is just another thing on the list of Ten’s weird behavior. I feel like he’s not telling the whole truth about Tuesday night.”

“Mm.” Jaehyun makes a noise of affirmation. 

Jungwoo notices this. “But I don’t think you fought about _just_ Ten, did you?”

Jaehyun shoots his gaze back up to the younger and blinks once or twice in rapid succession.

“I caught him on his way out. I haven’t known Ten for as long as you, and I don’t know him as well, but he’s not one to shed tears over himself, I don’t think. He’s more the type to get upset about somebody else.” Jaehyun can tell that the smile on Jungwoo’s face is supposed to be comforting, now. “Like his best friend, maybe.”

Jaehyun doesn’t say anything. That ugly part of him keeps his mouth shut, his secrets locked away, and his defense system on high alert. Jungwoo knows this as well as anybody, and fixes Jaehyun with a tender look. He stands up and rests a soothing hand on Jaehyun’s shoulder. 

“Talk to him. It’s not like the two of you to fight like this.”

He leaves, and Jaehyun is once again left alone with his own thoughts.

_Am I?_ That voice asks once more. _Self-destructing?_

* * *

Ten and Jaehyun don’t ever _fight_ because conflict isn’t something that likes to make its way into their personalities and their daily lives. They don’t really fight with each other, and they don’t really fight with anyone else. Yuta praises Jaehyun’s mellow nature- his ability to keep a level head, to diffuse a tense situation, and to keep himself away from negative things- when particularly dark clouds drift over the heads of their apartment’s residents. It wasn’t the talent that Yuta made it out to be; in fact, it was more of an Ignoring thing than anything else. He could overlook every bad thing in order to ultimately get to the root of an issue. And since those bad things would be pushed onto the back burner, they would be neglected until they got brought up in yet another spat. Jaehyun’s method was a _circle_ , a neverending circle of conflict and resolutions, because at the end of the day nothing was really being resolved. Ignorance is Jaehyun’s strong point. 

Unfortunately, when you ignore something for long enough, it tells you that it’s prime time for it to explode into something way, way more serious than it had been initially. Ten wasn’t wrong, in that sense. When you live like this, self-destruction is imminent.

Jaehyun only manages to pull himself out of his room to flop down onto the living room sofa. His usual study time at the cafe is long forgotten as he slips into an imitation of sleep, tired from his headache, and tired from thinking about Ten. That’s where Sicheng finds him an unknown number of hours later, with his arm hanging off of the side of the couch, and his head pressed uncomfortably into the seat’s cushion. When his eyes slide open, they’re greeted with a face that’s far too close to his slumbering form, and he flinches back, raising his hand in defense.

He quickly registers that the face before him is Sicheng, who leans back just as well, and draws his hand back to rub at his eyes. Sicheng is sitting on the ottoman in the middle of the room, his legs crossed, grasping a cup of what Jaehyun assumes to be tea in one hand and a small book in the other. His eyes aren’t on the book, though; instead, they’re focused on Jaehyun, far too intense and far too scrutinizing for what is surely still morning time. His beige-colored turtleneck and black slacks accompanied by thick frames only managed to tie together a look that _drips "_ judgmental." Jaehyun quirks an eyebrow. 

“Good…” Jaehyun spares a glance at the digital clock that was situated over the living room’s television. _Eleven thirty-six_. “...morning.”

Sicheng smirks strangely and pushes up his glasses with his wrist. A wave of unease crashes over Jaehyun. “Good morning.” 

Jaehyun sits up, perplexed. He and Sicheng had never been particularly close. In fact, Sicheng is probably twenty times closer to Ten than he is to Jaehyun, considering the fact that they were crammed into an apartment together. Yuta’s Definitely-Not-Boyfriend drifted in and out of their friend group, showing up to some events while outright avoiding others. He was an enigma of sorts. 

Sicheng takes a sip out of his cup and looks down at his book.

“Uh…” Jaehyun trails off, but Sicheng makes no motion to look back at him. “Where’s Yuta?”

The man opposite him shrugs. “Not sure. Taeyong’s at work, and he should be off within the hour. Jungwoo went on a “run”, but he probably just went to see Xuxi. I think Yuta went to the grocery store. You guys need it.”

Jaehyun nods slowly, still confused. Sicheng finally raises his gaze and sees Jaehyun’s confusion.

“You wouldn’t know because you’re never here on Thursday mornings, but I usually come over for some peace and quiet. Nobody has a class on Thursday morning. Nobody has work. So it’s loud.” Sicheng shifts his weight back and forth. “But I’m sitting here because Jungwoo told me that you and Ten had a fight.”

Jaehyun curses under his breath. _Of course,_ Jungwoo spilled. It was in his nature to reveal information if he believes that somebody will benefit from its announcement. 

Sicheng continues, sliding a bookmark that he had conjured from somewhere into the pages of the book and closing it with a _plop_. “I’m not particularly inclined to go home and deal with the dark pit of sadness that Ten has inevitably cast over the entire apartment, nor do I want to get a phone call from Yuta at ten o’clock tonight when you go and hide in your room and skip dinner.” Jaehyun opens his mouth to protest, but Sicheng quickly cuts him off. “You know that’s what you do when you’re upset. I’m only speaking from experience.”

Suddenly, Sicheng stands up, casting his book behind him on the ottoman and clapping his hands together. Jaehyun blinks.

“So. You want to get some ice cream?" Sicheng's inquiry takes him by surprise. Jaehyun shoots his head up in order to make eye contact, shock clearly written on his face, but he quickly erases it from his expression in favor of something neutral and unsuspecting. Sicheng had already seen it all. There goes that _ugliness_ again.

"You're just offering because you know Ten and I had a fight. You usually don't do that kind of thing with me, you know." Jaehyun drones, and resists the urge to stuff his face back into the living room pillow. Wistfully, he notes that the one that matches the pillow under his head must still be on his bedroom floor, where Ten left it only two hours ago in his rush to exit the room. The blankets were probably still crumpled on the floor. 

"I was under the assumption that there's a first time for everything. The first fight with your best friend, the first time going out for ice cream with the Chinese boy who tacked himself onto your friend group a few months ago. It's only fair." 

Jaehyun really can’t argue with that, but raises another question. "Ice cream doesn't seem like your thing." 

Sicheng returns an affable smile, one that Jaehyun had never seen on him before, and one that he most certainly was not expecting. "It's not, really. But I know it's yours."

* * *

They, strangely enough, go to get ice cream from the shop on the corner. The inside was air-conditioned- pleasant, on a warm day, but not so much when it’s windy and the breeze carries a chill and you’re _eating ice cream_. Jaehyun orders a strawberry in their largest size, covered in chocolate sprinkles and oreo crumbs and fudge topping, while Sicheng settles for a small, plain vanilla, grimacing as he pulls out his wallet to pay for the treats.

“You don’t have to-” Jaehyun starts to reach for his own pocket to grab his wallet, but Sicheng raises a hand, and that’s all he has to do for Jaehyun to pull back. 

“I invited you here, you know,” Sicheng says as he whips out his credit card. “So it’s right that I pay, even if it's for that abomination.” 

Jaehyun hesitates but nods nonetheless. 

When they’ve paid and sat down, and Jaehyun starts poking dejectedly at the top, Sicheng drops the inevitable into their conversation.

“So this is about what happened between him and Kunhang, is it not?” He scoops a tiny bit of ice cream onto the tip of his spoon and tastes it. Deciding he likes the taste, he scoops up more the second time.

“Mhmm.” Jaehyun agrees over a disgustingly large spoonful of ice cream mess. 

“Do take your time.” Sicheng fixes Jaehyun with a glance filled with irritation, and Jaehyun returns a timid smile. “But, I do have to say that I didn’t expect something of this magnitude from both of you. You’re an inseparable pair. I haven’t known you for as long as I’ve known Ten, but for a long time before we both met I knew about you in theory. Ten only had good things to say about his, ah, ‘pretty boy best friend.’” Sicheng says the last part with mirth in his tone, and Jaehyun feels a little bit of it in his heart when he hears the nickname that Ten had cleverly assigned him so many years ago. 

“He’s always been the type to brag about his friends, huh?” Jaehyun mutters around another mouthful. He winks at Sicheng’s glare this time. 

“Yes.” Sicheng affirms. He pushes the ice cream away after a few moments; he _had_ said that it wasn’t particularly his thing. “In a way, I believe that you mean the world to him.”

“Hm.”

“Don’t respond like that,” Sicheng chides, brushing nonexistent dust from his slacks. Jaehyun feels like he’s significantly underdressed in his sweatpants and tee sitting next to Sicheng, even though they’re in a neighborhood ice cream parlor. “More than anything, he values your opinion.”

“But he got mad when I gave it.” He’s somehow halfway through his enormous cup of frozen slush, and Sicheng notes this with a frown. “Like-”

“Like he’s not used to you disagreeing with him on key subjects,” Sicheng cuts him off and doesn’t even look apologetic. “From what I can tell, the two of you have been going on for years about the same thing. He probably wasn’t expecting anything different.”

Jaehyun tilts his head in consideration, but doesn’t say anything. He continues shoveling ice cream in his mouth.

More than anything, Jaehyun hates that Sicheng is right, after only having one or two one-on-one conversations with Jaehyun in the six months that he’s known him.

“I didn’t invite you here to lecture you or to tell you the things that you did incorrectly.” Sicheng picks up the spoon where he had discarded it in the cup of ice cream, twirling it around his fingers. Jaehyun knows that Sicheng isn’t trying to fall into the same routine as their friends, of asking Jaehyun if _he’s_ okay when they know that he really isn’t. For that, Jaehyun is thankful. “But perhaps you should talk to him and clear the air between the two of you.” 

“Maybe,” Jaehyun says, and digs his spoon back into the cup. 

* * *

Jaehyun doesn’t realize how lonely he feels until he’s scrolling through Twitter at eleven o’clock at night- he already knows it’s going to be a long night, and he has a class at eight- and realizes that _maybe_ it wouldn’t be the best idea to send Ten the picture of the cat he found. 

Taeyong had taken note of Jaehyun’s strange tension during dinner, but he only managed to pull the information from Jaehyun after almost five minutes of questioning.

Taeyong _never_ starts off with the question that he actually wants to ask. Instead, it always goes like this:

“How was class?” Taeyong had asked, stabbing at the takeout that he had grabbed on his way home from class for the household. _I’m the breadwinner,_ he claimed. Yuta rolled his eyes, but grabbed the container of jjajangmyeon just as quickly.

“Well,” Jaehyun muttered around his mouthful of rice, startled by the sudden question. They had practically been eating in silence like a pack of starving dogs. As it turned out, Yuta had _not_ gone on the grocery run that they had so desperately needed; instead, he had been at the library for once, studying for his next exam since he had “failed the last one miserably.” All Jaehyun had eaten that day was the ice cream and, admittedly, an entire family-sized bag of sour cream and onion chips. 

“Well,” Taeyong repeated after Jaehyun, confused. It took a moment before something sunk into his mind. “Wait. Did you skip your class?”

Jaehyun’s silence and quick resumption of eating rice were enough of an answer for Taeyong. Jaehyun can feel the worry radiating from Taeyong in waves now, and this was exactly what he was trying to avoid. Because that’s just Taeyong’s personality: worrying about each and every one of his friends and trying to fix their problems even though he knows he can’t. Yuta and Jungwoo had slowed down in their rapid eating as well, observing the situation with rapt attention. 

Jaehyun sighed and laid his chopsticks down next to his food, looking up to meet Taeyong’s concerned gaze. 

“What’s wrong, Jae?”

“Hyung,” he groaned, but Taeyong clicked his tongue at him.

“Come on, seriously. What’s wrong?”

Jaehyun shook his head but acknowledged that Taeyong wouldn’t drop the problem no matter how long Jaehyun tried to avoid it. 

“Ten and I had a... disagreement.” Jaehyun settled for, dropping his gaze. He could hear Taeyong’s sharp inhale, and Jungwoo’s huff.

“They fought.” Jungwoo corrected Jaehyun, and Jaehyun shot his head up to give him a glare. Jungwoo stuck his tongue out in response, and Jaeyun was promptly reminded that despite his sweet nature Jungwoo still liked to mess with him. Jaehyun turned to face Taeyong, and immediately feels guilt run over him at the older’s worried stare.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Taeyong asked, and there goes his _real_ question. Jaehyun exhaled and picked up his chopsticks. Yuta was simply observing the rest of them.

“No,” Jaehyun replied, and stabbed into his food once more.

So, short story short, Jaehyun hates fighting with Ten because it just feels _wrong_ to everybody, not just to Jaehyun. It makes Taeyong uncomfortable, and it makes Yuta and Jungwoo uncomfortable just the same. It’s not something that they do, so he doesn’t know how to deal with it. He feels the way a freshman does on their first day of high school, or perhaps like a baby bird when its parent first ushers it down the branch of a tree for its first flight. No prior experience. He hates how his finger hovers over Ten’s contact because it _knows_ that he wants to call him, that he wants to beg him for forgiveness, but that Something in him doesn’t allow him to do so. He hates the look Jungwoo gave him before he closed himself in his room for the night. Jaehyun’s so unused to this that he’s this unoriented, after one _day_. It’s highlighting not only his own weaknesses and faults but also how much he relies on Ten, even though he would deny it any other time. They’re as close as best friends can get.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Jaehyun knows that he’s being immature. He knows that this could probably be solved with one phone call or one house visit. That’s the way they were, and even this new experience wouldn’t change that. But perhaps that’s what they needed: change. Jaehyun doesn’t think he’s a fan of the word.

He glances aimlessly up at his phone clock. The white numbers read 11:23, yet a part of him is telling him that he needs to get away from this place- his room, the scene of the crime, the catalyst.

So he does.

Jaehyun pulls the blankets from on top of his body and stretches his arms over his head much like he had in the morning, and walks over to his closet to put on a warmer shirt with his sweatpants. He brushes his fingers through his hair as he strides from his bedroom, careful to avoid the floorboards that he knows are particularly creaky to avoid any inquiries from his friends, and makes his way to the front door. There’s a brief moment when he’s pulling on his sneakers where he asks himself what he’s doing, but he brushes it off just as quickly. Sometimes when you think too hard and psych yourself out of doing things, you miss great opportunities. Or so Jaehyun tells himself as he opens the front door and is greeted with a blast of the hallway’s coldest air. 

Jaehyun- the dumbass that he is- is right to have done so. But he doesn’t _know_ that.

His feet take him down the stairs and through the lobby. The security guard at the front door looks briefly startled, but nods his head when Jaehyun passes, likely reminding himself of how he works at an apartment building full of college students. The brunette strolls outside with no care in the world, his hands in his pockets and his head swinging from side to side with his steps. There’s a park not too far from the apartment; a tiny thing, complete with a slide and the obligatory swingset. Jaehyun’s quite sure that not many children play on it, especially in the more extreme seasons, where the metal slide would either burn or freeze their legs.

It was nearly silent outside, considering the fact that he lived in Seoul. Some crickets chirped and he could hear distant sirens, telltale signs of city life, but to Jaehyun, it was quieter than in his room. In there, he could hear Ten’s voice echoing in the back of his mind, even when he had plugged his headphones in and turned on TWICE’s _Fancy_ as loud as the volume would allow him to. But these noises were comforting to Jaehyun, familiar. It made him feel light on his feet, and lifted the tiredness from his form.

Jaehyun sits on the bench facing away from the park and towards the street, closes his eyes, and digs his hand around in his pockets before realizing that his phone wasn’t in either of them. He does the stereotypical thing and pats along his legs and his chest, but the device was absent. Jaehyun curses and thinks about how its probably firmly tucked into his bed while he was sitting on a park bench thirty minutes to midnight on a Thursday, cold as shit, and regretting his decision. Impulsivity is not his strong point.

He’s about to stand to his feet- ready to wander back into his building and surely worry his security guard- when a voice disrupts the silence that had settled over the street, floating over his head from behind the bench. 

“A bit late, don’t you think?”

Jaehyun startles, because of course, he does. It’s- as he said- thirty minutes to midnight on a Thursday and cold as shit. He recovers quickly, though, and turns around to face the owner of the voice.

When he comes full circle, he’s met with a familiar face, complete with long legs, tousled black hair, and a cheerful smile.

“Johnny,” Jaehyun speaks before he even realizes he is, before he even really comprehends what’s going on. Johnny exudes a different energy now than he had in the elevator only one day prior- instead of an immaculate outfit that could probably be worn to a formal event, Johnny is now dressed in gray sweatpants and a hoodie that’s somehow too large for him, much like Jaehyun himself. Even in the few moments that they had known each other, Jaehyun could guess that Johnny isn’t often somebody who looks undone. Johnny opposite him tilts his head in acknowledgment. “I could say the same for you, I think.”

Johnny gestures with his hand, and it takes Jaehyun a few seconds too long to realize that he’s asking to sit down on the bench next to him, and that he’s awkwardly waiting for an answer. Jaehyun nods quickly, probably a little bit too aggressively, and Johnny takes a seat.

“I’m one to stay up late,” Johnny responds, tucking his hands into the front of his hoodie and leaning back on the bench, probably seeking comfort. He’d never get it on the hard metal. Jaehyun files that information away in his head, subconsciously. “But for some reason, I don’t think you’re the same way.”

Jaehyun laughs quietly. “You’d be wrong there.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “Am I? You look tired as shit.”

Jaehyun can’t see himself in the mirror, but he knows that Johnny’s probably right. He can feel his brain comparing himself to Johnny; even in this lazy, unorganized state, Johnny somehow still manages to look more put-together and energized than Jaehyun does. He’s unsure of what that means. Jaehyun isn’t sure how to respond, so he just chuckles. “I am, I guess.”

“Long day?”

“Yeah.” Jaehyun rubs his face between his hands. “Long day.”

“Well.” Jaehyun can see Johnny shift out of his peripheral. “It’s almost over.”

That is the only thing that Jaehyun finds comfort in, and he nods in agreement. The past few days had been positively awful, but that day had been the worst. 

Jaehyun’s tired, at this point, and his filter had long since expired. The bags under his eyes were weighing down on his soul. He lays his head on the back of the bench, much like Johnny had moments before, and turns to look at Johnny directly. Johnny does the same. 

“Do you ever fight with your best friend?” Jaehyun blurts, and immediately cringes when the words escape into the night air. Like Johnny isn’t a stranger, little more than the handsome man who had been his neighbor since his sophomore year in college. He can feel embarrassment crawl up his arms like insects, but Johnny doesn’t look all that concerned or teasing. His face just softens into something else- understanding, a part of Jaehyun’s brain supplies- and he’s not quite sure he’s used to that.

“Fuck yeah, I do.” Johnny casually supplies, as if the two of them had been best buddies for years. Somehow, the sudden familiarity settles the nerves bubbling low in Jaehyun’s stomach. “Disagreements are part of every relationship. Sometimes you gotta step away and reflect on what those disagreements mean. For you and for them. And when you step back, you can start thinking about how to approach a solution.” 

Jaehyun’s mind blanks, because for the first time that day, Jaehyun wasn’t on the receiving end of piteous looks and shaken heads, of someone who was distanced from the issue at hand. For the first time in a while, actually, Jaehyun feels like he’s looking at someone who _understands_ him, someone who isn’t just trying to make him feel better. Someone who isn’t just trying to solve an issue instead of trying to solve something else. Maybe it’s the lack of familiarity between them, or maybe it’s something else. He can’t put his finger on it. All he can do is blink, and Johnny blinks back.

“Does that make sense?” Johnny prompts after a few beats of silence. 

“Yeah.” Jaehyun is sure his voice is monotone. “It does.”

Johnny doesn’t push him further, and instead sinks a little further down onto the bench, until his body is bent at an almost unnatural angle. Jaehyun laughs, and this time, it doesn’t feel fake or shallow. 

“What’re you doing?” Jaehyun asks between his laughs. Johnny smirks from his strange position.

“Trying to make you laugh. It worked… I think.” Johnny wiggles his eyebrows. 

Jaehyun shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re an interesting one. I can say with full confidence that I’ve never met anyone like you, talking like this with a stranger."

“Yeah?" Johnny sits back up abruptly, his hair bobbing with him. Jaehyun watches it bounce. “Well. I’ve heard that before.”

A comfortable silence settles over the two of them, much like that of when Jaehyun first came outside, but his brain is whispering at him, insisting upon something he doesn’t quite know or understand. So he just starts speaking.

"I swear, you seem way more familiar to me than you should. Are you sure this week was the first time we spoke?" Jaehyun questions, squinting as he stares up at the nearest street light for no particular reason other than to avoid eye contact. There was, undeniably, something familiar in Johnny’s stable tone. To his left, Johnny hums in agreement. 

"That was the first time, I'm pretty sure." Johnny is staring at the street light, too. Jaehyun can see him out of his periphery. They both look pretty dumb, staring at a street light when they could be looking at each other. Like a normal conversation. Jaehyun concludes that there’s nothing _normal_ about this. "But I get that a lot."

"Weird." Comes Jaehyun's reply. He wipes his mildly sweaty hands on his jeans and wrenches his eyes shut. He can still see the light from the streetlamp burned onto the back of his eyelids. "You probably just wanted a nice evening walk, and here comes your dumb neighbor, unloading all of his shit onto you. I'm sorry, man."

"Don't apologize." As Jaehyun turns back to face him, Johnny's chuckle and the smile that follows are comforting and warm. The street light's orange glow makes his eyes glitter just like the stars would. He understands now why he avoided glancing in Johnny’s direction. "I enjoyed talking to you for more than the length of an elevator ride." 

Johnny winks. He _winks_. If it wasn't before, Jaehyun is sure his face is as red as a cherry. He prays that the night's shadows hide it from Johnny's knowing eyes, but from the small smirk that pulls at the corner of Johnny's lips tells him otherwise. Jaehyun thought that it was a great time to leave before embarrassing himself any further. 

He stands abruptly, clapping his hands together, and Johnny follows suit. "Thanks. For listening to me, I mean." Jaehyun smiles, and he hopes it reaches his eyes. 

"Of course." The earnest expression still hasn't left Johnny’s visage. "Let's talk again sometime, Jung Jaehyun." He holds out a hand, and Jaehyun places his right hand in Johnny's.

"Alright, Johnny Suh," Johnny laughs a little bit as Jaehyun calls him by his full name, and Jaehyun can’t help the grin that splits his face. Before he knows it, he’s giggling, too. 

“It’s midnight, now,” Johnny says, glancing at his phone. He winks at Jaehyun again. “Dawn of a new day.” Jaehyun nods at the look Johnny gives him. He doesn’t know why.

Johnny waves goodbye when he reaches the street’s end, close to their apartment building. Jaehyun makes sure to wave back. 

The full moon hangs low in the sky, earning its keep among the millions of bright stars that shone alongside it. _Hey,_ it seemed to say, _I can shine just as bright as you all combined._

Johnny, Jaehyun is starting to think, might just be the moon. And in his heart, somewhere, that feels exactly the way that it should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jaehyun! ur dumb!
> 
> haha! so that took me almost a month to write (except three weeks of it was me being like, i want this to happen, and then never executing it)  
> yeah there is a second part that will like, open up the world some more i guess? it's been very limited to jaehyun and his friends and his apartment, next time we will see a bit More of Everything!
> 
> see u again soon, i promise i will make an effort not to take so long this time!! this next chapter is fun! im sure ur feeling the slow burn now!!
> 
>   
> [story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hF0px19M3eBanOnSdCMEk?si=4s4cstETQ_uP28bPAilkdg)


	4. i need your shining light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, i would like to sincerely apologize for taking so long to write this! second of all, i would like to apologize for its length DJKSNJ umm i have like a set schedule with this story and i Did Not realize how much content i had given myself to put into chapter four. thank you so much for your patience!! 
> 
> thank u 4 the ppl who encouraged me 2 get thru thiss... the story is Really Really starting now!
> 
> title from sir greendown by janelle monae!

The first time Jaehyun and Johnny meet, they're in high school, not in an elevator. 

Jaehyun was fourteen years old, a freshman, and as bright as he would ever be (much to his own chagrin). He and his best friends wandered around the school bringing misfortune to anybody who came across them; don’t for one second believe him when he says that he was innocent and Ten was a troublemaker. They both were, and Ten took the fall for it. In those days, Jaehyun wore his heart on his sleeve; his classmates called him sensitive, and his hyungs would poke fun at him in the best way. Needless to say, Jaehyun was a completely different person than he is _now_. This has been covered, extensively.

But Johnny was sixteen years old and a junior who had recently moved to South Korea from Chicago, Illinois, complete with long and gangly limbs that he had yet to grow into, inky black hair, and a charming smile that would characterize him for years and years to come. He could never admit it, but the Johnny of high school was as dark and brooding as any stereotypical representation of teenagers in the films he watched growing up. His bangs absolutely topped everything off. Johnny of the past was, unlike Jaehyun, doubtlessly a hopeless individual.

But Johnny wasn't really 'Johnny,' not at that point. A stark contrast to the person he is in the present, Johnny was a lot more afraid and a lot less willing to speak his mind. He went by his Korean name- Youngho- so that none of the other kids would even think of making fun of him for being the foreign kid. Regardless, that first year in Korea was painfully difficult; changing schools in the junior year is scary to anybody, but doing so and moving to an entirely different _country_ was a different book, one in the opposite corner of the library bound with a different type of leather. Despite his best efforts, he still couldn't shape himself into the exact shape and size to fit into the puzzle pieces of his new school. He stuttered and stumbled over his Korean, read slower than others at this stage of life, and found that it was _pretty_ damn hard for him to find a place to belong this late in the game.

So Johnny- Youngho- just didn't try to. He locked away all of those things he had believed in for years- that he would graduate from his school back in Chicago with his best friends by his side before shipping off to NYU to chase the film degree he had always sought after. Maybe, ten years down the line after that, he could find himself on the red carpet at the Oscars or the Emmys. His eyes still glittered when he remembered those days, but he packed up those memories and flung them into a chest so deep and thick-walled that not even Superman himself could tear open the lock.

Youngho tried his best to let it go.

He had made one friend in the year behind him named Kim Dongyoung, and another in the year ahead named Moon Taeil. They definitely weren’t as close to each other as they gradually came to be once they all reached the collegiate level, but Youngho had a place to sit at lunch, and people to make him laugh when he really needed it. Taeil was always crying about his college entrance exams, studying hard, drinking unhealthy and copious amounts of coffee, and pulling all-nighters. Dongyoung was, more or less, the mediator; at least when he wasn’t fighting with his so-called “mortal enemy”, Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul. 

It had been painfully warm in the summer that Youngho had moved to Korea, with temperatures ranging from high above their averages from years prior to the point where even leaving his home was unbearable. Wandering down the street resulted in clothes becoming drenched in sweat, and if anybody had stepped outside for more than a few minutes without water or shade, passing out was damn near inevitable. 

And, as a result, Youngho just _didn’t_ go outside, especially after school. He would always find himself wandering the hallways or hiding in club rooms (especially because he refused to join any himself), or studying hard in the library so that he could catch up to the rest of the students around him. 

Some days, though, Youngho wanted to forget about all of that, about studying and Korea and _other people_. Thus, he hid.

Youngho had been sitting alone in the choir room for months, playing the piano after school hours when he finally had the chance to be alone, to breathe and to really think on his own. The piano had been the one thing to hang tightly onto him when he left his home, one of the few things to do so. When his fingers brushed over the keys and pressed them down shortly thereafter, he felt a release unlike anything else. Maybe it was because of everything that happened in the daytime, all the pushing and coaxing to become someone that he had never planned on becoming in the first place. When Youngho played the piano, he was able to be himself in a world where he felt like he could no longer be. 

Of course, the Fates have been sticking their hands in people’s business since the beginning of time, so it was only right for them to stick their hands in Youngho’s.

It had been a normal Tuesday afternoon sometime in September, when the weather was unsure of whether or not it was going to be hot or cold or cold or hot. It was that time of year where autumn was uncertain if she wanted to show her true colors, so the people on earth only got half of the package: leaves fell to the ground in heaps, but those fallen leaves were accompanied by the intense heat of summertime. But still, those scents that could only belong to fall- spices and trees on the wind- were present regardless.

Youngho had sat down at the grand piano and caressed the keys with his fingertips in order to feel the cool resin. He arched his back- just like always- and began to play a familiar song. 

Claude Debussy’s _Clair de lune,_ the third movement of his famous _Suite bergamasque._ The title itself translates to _moonlight_ from French, and somehow, when Youngho would dance his fingers over the piano to play it, he felt something like moonlight in his soul and in his memories, twisting and curling over his thoughts and worries just as easily as he pressed down on the keys. Once, in his curiosity, Youngho had sought out the origins of the piece and came across the poem that Debussy had gained inspiration from, _Clair de lune_ by Paul Verlaine. 

_The lovely melancholy light that sets_

_The little birds to dreaming in the tree_

_And among the statues-_

“Woah.”

A voice suddenly broke through Youngho’s stupor, stopping his hands and sending him into a flinch so dramatic that he saw whoever just spoke to him flinch out of his peripheral. He shook his head out of both embarrassment at being caught and frustration at being disturbed during the only time he had to himself. Youngho spins around, and instead of one head, there’s two staring back at him with wide eyes.

They all blink at each other before the two across from Youngho erupt in thunderous applause, startling him again. This time, he almost fell from his bench.

“That was really good!” The boy who had spoken before cheered in between claps, smiling.

“Mhm.” The short one next to him cosigns, clapping just as quickly and with as much enthusiasm as his counterpart. Youngho is stunned into silence.

“...” Youngho searched for words. “...Thanks?”

“Of course!” The taller of the two zealously replied, and they’re finally done clapping. Youngho huffs a sigh of relief. “You’re really good.”

“Yeah?” Youngho smiled a little bit. These two kids who were visibly underclassmen had more energy than he could manage, but compliments coming from kids of their age- _demon years,_ as his mother so helpfully referred them- were almost assured to be genuine.

“I’ve seen you in here once or twice before, but this is the first time I’ve actually come in.” The kid continued, and Youngho had to pause. When he thought he was alone with he and himself, there was some kid watching him from the window outside? In his most private moments? Something made him shiver. 

Youngho didn’t say anything and instead chose to just nod his head a little bit. Both the kids’ faces lit up.

"Could you play something for me, then?" The kid asked, ruffling his hair with his left hand for no apparent reason other than to give off a roguish vibe. It wasn't really working, and the squirt next to him giggled a little bit.

"Jae, you look ugly-" The short boy spoke in an accented voice- Youngho couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was- but before he could finish his sentence, the boy- Jae, apparently- was shoving him over with both hands. He exclaimed as he fell into the nearest chair, but began giggling nonetheless, and soon, both of them were laughing. 

Youngho blinked, confused, and brushed his hands over the keys. 

The freshmen (or so he assumed) ceased in their laughing and turned back to face the junior at the piano, newfound enthusiasm painted on their expressions. Jae places two hands on his hips and lifts his head high. 

"So, Mr. Piano-" Youngho cringed at the nickname. It made him sound like a dickhead. "Can you play a song?"

Youngho was absolutely baffled, but something made him want to nod his head. So he did. As soon as he did so, though, both kids were fist-pumping and jumping up and down, shouting in excitement. Youngho didn't know what to do except smile awkwardly.

"See, see. None of our friends can play, and we can't, either." The foreign boy spoke from where he had yet to stand. "Jae likes to sing, though. I've been telling him to learn for years."

"Hey!" Jae exclaimed, sticking his tongue out at his counterpart. Youngho kind of felt like he was watching a kid's television show with the way they spoke to each other. "I've been… trying! I just can't play as well as you, sunbae." Youngho found himself shocked at the honorific. 

"Well," Youngho spoke, for the first time it at least a few minutes, he realizes. "I have to know what song you want me to play if you want me to play it."

"Oh! Duh." Jae actually claps his hands together. "Okay. Do you know _As I Live?"_

Youngho wanted to laugh a little bit. Of course, he knew _As I Live_ , and he relayed this to the younger student. Jae clapped in excitement again. 

Jae’s friend cheered from where he was still sat in the chair as Youngho lined his hands upon the keys, ready to start. He looked up at Jae, and Jae nodded back to him.

Youngho played the first few notes to the intro of the song, still looking back at Jae, and Jae was still staring right at him. With all of the build-up, Youngho had to say that he was pumped to hear the boy sing.

Jae opens his mouth, and Youngho’s eyebrows raise up just as his lips do. He had a feeling that he was going to hear something amazing-

Just as Jae was set to start- the first syllable on the tip of his tongue- a noise more startling and much more disturbing than Jae and his friend’s cacophonous applause tore its way through the shell that had seemingly encased the three of them in the choir room. Jae’s hand shot to his back pocket, and Youngho can see that his friend suddenly looked afraid.

“Dude. That’s definitely Sooyoung.” The still-unnamed friend muttered, slapping both of his hands on his cheeks. 

“What did you _do?_ ” Jae hissed, but he wasn’t moving to answer the insistently ringing phone in his pocket.

“Nothing!”

Jae glared at his friend but spun around to face Youngho anyway. The ringing had finally stopped. 

“I’m so sorry, hyung- I can call you that, right- I’m sorry for wasting your time, hyung. We have to go now, but thank you so much.” Jae was grasping at his friend’s arm to pull him up out of his sitting position and was guiding him towards the room’s door that Youngho was just realizing was wide open, exposing the room to the hallway. That’s probably what prompted Jae and his friend to come wandering in the first place. Youngho almost slapped himself right then and there.

Just as Jae was about to walk out of the room, he spun back around and fixed Youngho with the biggest and brightest smile of the entire ten minutes that he had been gracing Youngho with his presence.

“You’re really talented, hyung! Stop hiding in the choir room! Who gives a shit about who hears you when you’re that good, y’know?” Was all he said before he slammed the door behind him, leaving Youngho to his own devices.

Youngho was once again left by himself, blinking, and reconsidering everything that he had taught himself in the few months since he had relocated to South Korea. All because of a weird underclassman and his best friend who told him that his playing of _Clair de lune_ was _good_.

Youngho stared at the keys in front of him, and he played the first note of the song he knew like the back of his hand. But somehow, then, it sounded different.

* * *

But we’ve got to step back into the present. Johnny doesn’t remember that Jaehyun is the _Jae_ he met in that choir room eight years prior, nor does Jaehyun remember that Johnny is the nice hyung who played that piano song very prettily when he and Ten were freshman, on the same day that Sooyoung kicked him in the kneecap, even though _everything_ was Ten’s fault that time, and he had nothing to with it. For once.

(Ten stole her gym shoes.)

Jaehyun did a lot of things for Johnny that day, and Johnny did quite a few things for Jaehyun. Neither of them can remember the face of the person who did those things for them, of course, or the Fates' story wouldn't exactly go the way that they want it to. 

Yet, by some miracle, Jaehyun still can remember that _moonlight_ . He can still remember _Clair de lune_ , even if he's not trying to. 

* * *

Jaehyun has absolutely no clue how he wound up back in his bed or when, but he does know that he wakes up face down and with a disgusting crick in his neck. It seems as though the universe has had it out for him these past few mornings: first with the sculpture (Taeyong had even pouted about it over their gourmet dinner of takeout the night before) and then with a headache and _Ten_.

Even thinking his name is a stark reminder of the explosion of emotions that had captured the room on the previous morning, and Jaehyun shivers at the thought. He’s going to do what he does best- repress the things that hurt him the most. The bright red LED lights of his analog clock glow glaringly at him- _7:22_ , they sneer. _Twenty minutes past your usual wake up time._ Jaehyun stares back at those teasing numbers for a second, brain blank, before the ramifications of his clock having those numbers upon its screen catch up to him. He slaps a hand on his cheek.

“Shit.” Jaehyun curses lowly, and starts waving his hands around in front of his body, unsure of what to grab or what to put on or what to even start doing. He opens and closes his hands three times before his brain tells his body to _move._ “Shit. Fuck. Fuck.” As he grabs the pair of sweatpants that he must have haphazardly thrown to the floor the night before and pulls them over his legs, he wishes he could step back into the previous semester and grab Jaehyun from those months ago by the throat and choke him out, because he’s a senior in university with an already disgusting workload, and he chose to take an Argumentation class at eight o’clock in the morning- one where the professor takes attendance, at that. Jaehyun _hates_ himself, and he hates his demon professor. Without even addressing the fact that he didn’t have time for a shower- he knows that he’s going to think about it for the rest of the morning if he allows himself the time to think about it now- Jaehyun swings open his door and makes a mad dash for the bathroom sink to wash his face and to brush his teeth, perhaps with a far too much force and haste. 

Jaehyun sprints back into his bedroom as quickly as his legs would carry him and glances at his bedside clock again- _7:30_ , this time- before he begins sifting around in his blankets and around his bed to grab the things he would need for class. Within seconds, his computer bag is thrown over his shoulder- he quietly thanks his course for requiring a digital book- and he’s running back out of the door. 

Jungwoo is in the kitchen as Jaehyun exits the hallway, rinsing out a bowl in the sink. He’s fully dressed as well- a simple pastel yellow top and black jeans- and his hair is neatly combed, a far cry from Jaehyun’s sweatpants-and-day-old-shirt combination. Jungwoo shuts off the water as Jaehyun approaches the front door.

“Oh, Jaehyun. What’re you doing here? You’re gonna be late.” Jungwoo’s voice is as soft as ever as he points out the obvious, but Jaehyun feels insulted as he remembers that Jungwoo’s class starts at nine and that the other is up and ready at this hour for no particular reason other than for preference, because Jungwoo especially likes to be on time. Jaehyun kind of wants to keel over, because he does too, and whatever funk has encapsulated his last few days is now ruining his mornings.

“Yes, I know. Bye.” Jaehyun stumbles over his words as he tugs on the first pair of shoes that belong to him. In the next instant, he was sprinting through the hallway and into the elevator.

The trains are crowded and the one that Jaehyun has to take is running behind. When he finally boards it and subsequently exits at his stop, the usual gate that leads to the outside is closed for construction. He narrowly avoids a large amount of carelessly abandoned dog shit when he walks past the green, and when he makes it to the classroom building, he damn near trips up the stairs. 

Jaehyun wants to drop down on his knees and beg for forgiveness from whatever elder god he had upset in his past life, because no good person who was trying their hardest to live life deserved _this_. 

When Jaehyun finally enters his lecture hall- out of breath and energy- by some miracle of God, it’s 8:01. He swings the door open and is promptly greeted with twenty-one heads spiraling to face his direction. Embarrassment seeps into his being as the twenty-first of those heads- a very sweet and considerate Dr. Kim Heechul- clicks his tongue. 

“Jung Jaehyun,” Dr. Kim shakes his head as he observes him. After a moment or two, he turns back to the class and continues speaking about whatever he had been before Jaehyun had very nicely interrupted him with his fashionably late entrance. 

Jaehyun drags his feet as he signs the attendance sheet with a sad _8:01_ , and when he eventually makes it to his usual seat at the back of the classroom, the final seat in the last row, he slumps into his chair.

_Fuck me_.

* * *

Jaehyun receives a cryptic yet polite text message on his way out of his lecture hall, vibrating his phone in his back pocket. As he pushes through the crowds outside of his classroom, he glances at his lock screen.

**From: Unknown Number**

_hi! you probably don’t have my number saved but it’s qian kun, ten’s roommate! i know you never work friday mornings, so please meet me at the cafe on campus at 11- i’m sure you know the one :)_

Jaehyun is slightly unsettled by the smiley face placed at the end of the message, but from what Jaehyun knows about Kun, the older man was only doing what he thought would come off best to the person receiving it. Jaehyun, of course, does not _want_ to meet Kun at the cafe, because if Kun is texting him to meet up in person, that means that Kun probably lifted Jaehyun’s number from Sicheng in an effort to make him talk about Ten. In Sicheng’s own words, Ten is probably _casting a dark cloud over their apartment_ , and Kun probably wants that fixed. Jaehyun feels a pang in his heart as he reminds himself of yesterday’s occurrences.

But, Kun is a good person. He and Jaehyun only periodically spoke- Kun being Ten’s roommate- but Jaehyun knows that he’s just _good_. A worrier and sometimes a bit nagging, but good nonetheless. If Kun wants to talk to Jaehyun, he probably wants to resolve the issue between Jaehyun and Ten rather than simply getting the two out of his own hair. Because that’s simply the type of person he appears to be. 

Despite his conclusions, Jaehyun still shoots a text message back.

**To: Unknown Number**

for what

Jaehyun _knows_ exactly what the meeting will be for. He’s had about four separate conversations about the situation in the past day alone, and he isn’t excited to have another one. First with Jungwoo and then Sicheng followed by Taeyong and-

Oh, shit. _Johnny._

Jaehyun had truly and honestly sat on a park bench and spilled to his _neighbor_ , of all people. The neighbor he had spoken to only once before. But Johnny had sat down right next to him on that park bench and went along with his outburst as if it was nothing new. Like they had known each other for a decade. A sudden urge to apologize to his neighbor floods his mind. Yet another part of Jaehyun’s brain suggests that it isn’t his fault, to begin with- it was Johnny’s easy smile and his winking eyes and his soothing voice. 

Johnny, Jaehyun concludes, is just something like a conundrum, and he’s something that Jaehyun seeks to understand.

Jaehyun’s thoughts are interrupted as his phone buzzes in his palm, indicating that Kun has texted him back.

**From: Unknown Number**

please :)

Jaehyun makes a note to register Kun’s name in his contact book as he slides his phone back into his pocket. He knows that no matter what he replies, he’ll go to the cafe anyway. Ignoring somebody like Kun just isn’t an option.

* * *

Jaehyun slips through the front doors of the cafe quietly, the bell signaling his arrival, and prays that Taeyong hasn’t stayed past his scheduled shift. 

It’s nearly empty- shocking, considering the time of day- with only a few tables occupied by people. A few were students, intently combing through their books or typing hastily on their laptops, but a few were business people and regular run-of-the-mill coffee seekers. 

The shop isn’t a big one; its owner- Byun Baekhyun, a friendly and humorous man who loves to dote on his employees- came from a modest background and it reflected that. There are only about ten or eleven tables, each with no more than three chairs each. It’s a magnet for the college students that attend classes nearby, and on the right day, it could take a dozen minutes to get through the line. Jaehyun always says a little prayer for the baristas on those days.

Jaehyun subconsciously huffs a sigh of relief when he sees Mark Lee’s black locks behind the counter instead of whatever color Taeyong decided to experiment with _this_ week ("It's trendy!" Taeyong had claimed.) The sophomore is Taeyong’s charge- by his own self-proclamation- and insisted on working at the cafe just as well (Jaehyun doubts this as anyone with any bit of brains should; _everybody_ knows that Mark has a huge crush on Taeyong’s little cousin- Donghyuck, a loud and headstrong freshman in attendance at K-Arts that sometimes came to visit Taeyong at his work- and that Donghyuck had never even once given him the time of day. Again, everybody knows about Mark's little crush except for Taeyong and poor Donghyuck himself.) 

He’s an enthusiastic kid; a music production major who had moved to Seoul two years ago after living in Canada for his entire life. Despite all of his quirks, Jaehyun still found it entertaining to be around him. Mark glances up when he hears the bell, clearly unoccupied and reclining on a stool, but furrows his eyebrows when he sees that the customer who had strode in is Jaehyun.

“Hey, hyung,” Mark says as Jaehyun approaches the counter. He's absentmindedly drumming his index fingers against the surface, and Jaehyun doubts that he even knows about what he's doing. “You just missed him.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun replies before his brain catches up behind him. Jaehyun only ever comes to the cafe for one reason, so it's not absurd for Mark to have assumed. “Wait. I’m not here for Taeyong.”

“For real?” Mark exclaims, probably a little too loudly. A few heads turn in their direction, and Mark at least has the nerve to look apologetic. As Jaehyun turns his glare onto him, he continues in a quieter voice. “I didn’t know you came here for anybody except Taeyong hyung. The food is subpar at best.” 

“Nice customer service.” Mark’s face turns beet red at Jaehyun’s words.

“Anyway!” Mark straightens from his position and wipes his hands on his apron, dusting it off. “What are you here for, then?”

Jaehyun takes a moment to pull his phone from his pocket and check the hour. _10:53._ He had come a bit earlier than his and Kun’s scheduled meetup time, but something tells him that Kun will arrive before eleven. He seems to be nothing but punctual. “Uh, I’m here to meet somebody.”

Mark’s eyes widen dramatically, and he leans closer to Jaehyun over the counter. After glancing around once or twice, he faces Jaehyun once again. “Like a date?” He whispers, as if they are exchanging top secret information. “This is a shit place to do it.”

“No!” Jaehyun scrambles to say, waving his hands in front of him. “And Byun Baekhyun-ssi would kill you if he heard that.” Mark visibly tenses at the mention of his boss and leans back from the counter to cross his arms. He fixes Jaehyun with a questioning stare.

“Then why are you-”

Mark is cut off as the jingling of bells signals another person’s entrance, startling them both from their strange whisper-conversation. Mark stands on the tips of his toes in order to glance past Jaehyun’s shoulder, and Jaehyun turns around too.

Qian Kun is standing in the entranceway with a bright and friendly smile on his face, much better dressed for the weather and with less shit-hair than Jaehyun. His brown locks flop over his forehead, and his hands are tucked into the pockets of his jeans. Compared to Jaehyun, he’s sure that Kun looks a lot less exhausted and a whole lot more like he got a full night's sleep. When they make eye contact, Kun pulls his left hand from his pocket and waves.

“Ooh, is that him?” Mark is muttering over his shoulder. “He’s cute.”

“He’s not a date.” Jaehyun snaps at the same volume, and Mark sticks out his tongue. "Why are you so damn interested in my love life?"

"Someone's gotta look out for you, hyung.” Mark responds sarcastically just as Kun walks up to meet them at the counter. Jaehyun decides that it would be mean to bring up Donghyuck, and opts for silence.

“Hey!” Kun says, his voice just as sweet as his smile. Jaehyun recognizes its warmth from the few times they had spoken. Jaehyun can see Mark wiggling his eyebrows out of his peripheral and resists the urge to reach across the counter and choke him out. “What do you want? It’s on me.” Jaehyun wants to offer to pay, but he knows Kun will probably respond the same way Sicheng did. If he’s going to have an unwanted heart to heart, he’d rather not pay for it, anyway.

They sit down in the farthest corner of the room near the window, where sunlight is weakly beaming through the glass and onto the wood of the table. Kun sits with his back to the door, and Jaehyub finds himself squeezed into the chair against the wall. They sit in silence like that for about a minute, just sipping on their coffees, before Kun breaks the silence.

“He’s a mess.” Is all he says, twirling the cup in his hand. Jaehyun looks down. 

“Have you seen him?” Jaehyun whispers, unable to lift his head.

“No, and that’s how I know. He went to class, but he didn’t come back until nearly one in the morning. Took a thirty-minute shower. And he was gone when I left a few hours ago, even though his class today is at-”

“Two-thirty.” Jaehyun finishes Kun’s sentence before he even realizes it. A look of knowing fills the older’s eyes. 

“Mhmm,” Kun affirms. “Two-thirty, and he was gone at eight. Ten sleeps like the dead. Unless he didn’t sleep at all.” 

Jaehyun remembers his own restless night, of scrolling on Twitter and Instagram and watching cooking videos on YouTube before he finally got sick of it and left the building altogether. He remembers his exhaustion and the persistent pain in his head and in his body, as if the mental stress had manifested itself into injuries. With everything that had been going through his head lately, his fight with Ten had been the cherry on top. Yet in his own strife, Jaehyun hasn’t yet thought about how everything has hurt _Ten_. How his fight with Kunhang had pushed him to the edge.

“I don’t want to lecture you.” Kun parrots Sicheng’s words from the day prior. “Or guilt you.”

Jaehyun hums in response. Despite their insistences, it felt like a lecture, always. Jaehyun is sick of them. He knows what’s best for himself. No one else does.

“So you’re probably just about to shut me out, because you don’t want to hear me anyway. That’s alright. But I’m saying these words with the hope that you’ll listen to them.”

Jaehyun finally lifts his gaze to meet Kun’s. What he sees there is firey insistence, blazing bright against the dark shade of his irises. Jaehyun had never seen such passion and intense emotion on Kun’s face before. Bewildered, Jaehyun opens his mouth once more.

“Okay,” He says, nodding slowly. 

Kun takes a deep breath.

“When I moved to this country almost four years ago, I didn’t have much of anything in terms of friends. I left the life I had back in China behind to come to this school in a very impulsive decision. In those first few weeks- even months- I started to regret it. I considered packing up my bags and going back home. But… then I met Ten.” Kun begins to worry at his bottom lip, nibbling at the skin.

Jaehyun remembers their freshman year; all fear and nervousness at the prospect of taking the reigns of their lives for the first time. Jaehyun had stumbled his way into university alight with insecurity and uncertainty, but Ten- brave, hardworking, colorful Ten- shook that fear away and shoved his way into the student body. Jaehyun had followed along. 

“You know him, so bright and unafraid. He was in my freshman bio class, the really hellish one. Neither of us knew what was going on, but he still tried his absolute hardest to help that shy Chinese student that sat in the back of the room, because even if I had sat in the front, I still wouldn’t have understood what was going on. So he started to sit in the back of the room, too. And sometimes, he would just talk.

“He would go on and on about things that seemed trivial. How his day went, or the type of coffee he had drunk in the morning. Yet those things somehow seemed to make me feel more comfortable than anything else. I felt like I fit in somewhere, and all these years later, I know that’s what he was trying to do. He’s so smart and kind, and so many people overlook that.”

Jaehyun finds himself nodding in agreement, recalling all the fights and minor spats he had with other classmates growing up over his best friend. People that assumed that he was dumb or mean or unassuming; people who would never know him for who he truly is.

“Ten would always go on about the same thing, sometimes. Sometimes he would complain about Kim Dongyoung, or about his professors, but he would always talk about his magical best friend with the regal face and the amazing talent and the bright smile.”

The younger of the two feels himself freeze up at Kun’s words, and Kun returns a knowing smile. Jaehyun remembers Sicheng’s words from yesterday, and wonders if the two men realize how similar they actually are.

“The way he spoke about you made me think he had a crush on you, but when I suggested that, he just laughed and said that he might as well. That you meant the world to him. He made you sound like such an enigma, like a wild creature only observable on a winter night at precisely nine p.m at zero degrees. Like you were the most special thing that’s ever happened to him.

“I think that the two of you are two sides of the same coin, whether you want to admit it or not. But you’re also tied together in the most interesting way. I think you two were bound to hurt one another like this, one way or another. I feel like now you’re starting to understand each other and yourselves.”

Kun sighs, and picks up the coffee that he had left beside him on the table to take a sip. “I understand that you have a hard time speaking your mind. So does he. You don’t want to appear like anything lesser than the character that you have built up for the people around you. But I know that he means the world to you just as you mean the world to him. So I implore you to talk to him. That’s all I ask. For the good of you both.”

The anger that Jaehyun normally would have felt from being told what to do doesn’t appear. No ugly feeling growls deep in his soul. He just blinks. 

“Ah, that was a lot, wasn’t it?” Kun’s face turns a light shade of pink, and he takes another large sip of his coffee. “I’m sorry.” The fire in his eyes had been replaced with something else.

“You’re okay,” Jaehyun says, and his own voice surprises him with how weak it sounds in his head. 

“Are _you_?” Kun questions, and Jaehyun is unsure of whether or not he can answer honestly. His thoughts are rattling around in his head like the beads on the inside of a maraca, slamming against the sides of his mind with force.

“Not yet.” Jaehyun opts for, startling not only himself but also Kun, who sits back a little bit in his chair. He’d tried his hardest to block out his thoughts and the images of Ten that had accompanied them, but Kun’s words strike against his heart. All the elder does is nod his head once. 

“Okay.” Comes Kun’s response. 

The two of them sit in silence much more comfortable than that which had come before; both sat back in their chairs and drank the coffee from their cups slowly. Neither glanced at their phones or at anybody else; instead, they both seemed to be staring out of the windows.

“Are you doing this for Ten? Or for something else?” Jaehyun is the first to break the silence as he observes a small black sedan roll down the street outside.

Kun is quiet for a few moments but leans forward to slide his cup back onto the table. His is nearly empty. “I’m doing it for my friend, but I’m doing it for you, too. All these years of Ten talking about you have made me feel like I’m your friend as well.”

Jaehyun chuckles quietly and finally turns to make eye contact with Kun once again.

“You’re a good person.” His words are genuine and fall from his mouth easily. Kun hums thoughtfully.

"The world’s a better place when we’re all trying our hardest to be our best, don’t you think? I just want everything to be the best that it can be, me included." Kun says, maintaining a level of eye contact so intense that Jaehyun struggles in trying to look away. “If I’m a good person for doing what everyone else is doing, then okay.”

Jaehyun hums lowly. “I think you’re overestimating everyone else.” The underlying mention of himself goes unsaid.

Kun lets out a chuckle of his own. “Am I?” 

Kun knows what he's saying as much as Jaehyun does. Jaehyun huffs, but doesn’t say anything else.

“Kim Dongyoung is back, you know?” 

Kun breaks the silence once again as he picks up his cup and takes one long drink from it, finishing it off. Jaehyun is barely halfway through his still. 

Jaehyun thinks back to the day before the last, when Taeyong had dropped that bomb on their group of friends in the noodle shop. He cringes.

“Oh yeah, we know. That’s another thing on Ten’s plate. They fucking hate each other.” Jaehyun, for the first time in a while, wants to roll his eyes sarcastically over Ten. It feels refreshing. “Don’t you… you know, hang out with Doyoung?”

“That’s what he’s going by now, huh?” Kun giggles, and begins to toy with the cardboard wrapped around his now empty cup. "Maybe so. But I hung out with Ten first. He’s actually quite a respectable person. It's about time their childish feud came to an end, don't you agree?" 

Jaehyun nods and laughs a little bit. It's strange how easy conversation with Kun is; he and Jaehyun had only spoken a good handful of times, and that was still stretching it. He had always been Ten's nice friend that waved to him in the background, smiling in a way that said that he knew everything, always. In a way, he does.

“Imagine how _I_ feel about them. You haven’t had to deal with it for your entire late childhood and early adulthood.” 

“You’re right, you’re right.” 

Kun’s face relaxes, and the smile there fades out until it’s shadowed on his lips. There’s a look in his eyes again. 

“You’ll be alright.” He murmurs, and lifts his empty cup from the table. He soon follows, standing from his chair, and when Jaehyun makes a move to do the same, Kun waves him down with one hand.

“I think you need some time for yourself, to finish that coffee.” Kun winks at Jaehyun. “So I’ll leave you to your own devices. Thanks for talking.”

“Yeah, of course.” Jaehyun feels slightly taken aback by Kun’s sudden urgent exit, but he understands why he’s doing what he’s doing. “I’ll see you around?”

Kun smiles a smile that only he can. “Of course.”

Kun slips out of the quaint shop quietly, tossing his cup in the can by the exit. Right before he walks through the door, he lifts a hand to wave goodbye, just as he did in greeting. This time, Jaehyun raises his own to wave back. 

He finds himself staring back out the window once more. How is he going to get to Ten? How is he going to tell him about everything, to apologize for everything that he said in his own fear and insecurity? Without Ten, there was something akin to a gaping hole in his heart, and Jaehyun doesn’t know how much longer he can bear its presence.

Jaehyun, of course, doesn’t have much time to think this over. There’s a presence next to him, now, far too close to be a stranger but still too uncomfortable to be any of his friends. He spins around and is promptly greeted with one Mark Lee, not where he’s supposed to be. Jaehyun blinks and glances past the young student, observing the cafe, which was much more empty than it had been when he and Kun had sat down. How much time had passed?

Mark blinks his doe eyes back at Jaehyun. “Dude, are you ever gonna leave?” 

Jaehyun glares at the younger. “Excellent customer service once again, Mark Lee.” 

Mark rolls his eyes and places his hands on his hips. “You’ve been here for like, an hour. I was under the impression that you have a _job_.” 

Oh, shit.

Mark is one-hundred percent right; it’s Friday afternoon, and Jaehyun has a shift to take down at _Antiquaria_ . In his own nonsense, he had forgotten about his _job_ , and when he glances at his clock, it says that it is now nearly twelve-thirty, and he has to be there at one. 

“Shit,” Jaehyun curses, this time audibly, and stands from his chair, the grating of its legs echoing through the now nearly empty cafe. One of the remaining patrons glances over at the noise. “Bye. I gotta go.” He pats his hands over his pockets to make sure that his phone and wallet were inside of them before making his way to the door.

“Thought so!” Mark shouts, waving both of his hands as if Jaehyun was sailing away from shore on a vessel, and he was his forlorn wife. “It was nice seeing you, hyung!”

The bell above the door signals his exit just as it had signaled his entrance, and with that, he starts at a fast pace towards the train station.

* * *

Just like the last time he had worked, at the end of his shift, Jaehyun receives a phone call from Taeyong. 

He grumbles a tired _hello_ into the receiver when he answers, smiling pleasantly when Youngjae squints at him in a judgemental manner. Youngjae taps at the top of his wrist where a watch would rest, frowning up his face even further, likely meaning something along the lines of _your shift still isn’t over._ Jaehyun playfully sticks his tongue out in response, and Youngjae rolls his eyes back at him as he turns back to whatever books he had been filing away. It’s a rare occasion for more than one person to be working at the shop at the same time, but when their boss- the elusive Do Kyungsoo, who Jaehyun swears he’s only seen in person once or twice- happens to schedule one of his four employees at the same time, mischief always follows. 

It had been a slow shift thus far- slower than usual, at that. Few customers had passed through their glass doors: one had stumbled in thinking that _Antiquaria_ was a club, at two p.m. Another politely asked if 'this is the school bookstore,' visibly shaking, around three. Now, every time that overhead bell jingles, Youngjae and Jaehyun quietly share a glance, discreetly betting on whether whoever came in would buy something from them. 

“Don’t make it a habit to answer that way when I call you!” Taeyong scolds on the other line, though Jaehyun can hear the joke in his tone. It’s quite refreshing, considering the dinner conversation from the night before. If Taeyong is good at anything, it’s cheering up his friends when they’re down. “I have some news.” His voice is buzzing with excitement, and suddenly Jaehyun knows that something good must have happened.

Jaehyun rolls his eyes even though he knows that Taeyong can’t see him. “Gee, _how was your shift, Jaehyun? How was class today, Jaehyun?_ So many ways you could have started this phone call.” Jaehyun pokes back at the older, but is curious nonetheless. Taeyong is clearly excited, more so than usual. “Okay. What’s this news of yours?”

“Okay, okay.” Jaehyun can feel the happiness radiating from the other, even though he can’t see his physical form. “Jae, you know the MBC internship I’ve been trying to get for like, a year?”

Jaehyun feels the ghost of a smile begin to bloom on his face. He has a feeling about what Taeyong is about to tell him. “Yeah, I know the one.”

“I fucking got it!” Taeyong cheers, his voice crackling through the phone from the sudden volume. He’s laughing, too. His delight is spilling through the receiver, and Jaehyun can feel a cloud take the place of the rocks that had been weighing him down, even if just for a moment. “I finally got it.”

All of a sudden, Jaehyun feels a pang of sadness strike against his heart amidst the joy. In his own brooding and moping, he had forgotten about how stressed out _Taeyong_ had been recently, especially in regards to his internship and his future job prospects. Even in his own burden, he tried to shoulder Jaehyun’s, as well. 

Jaehyun can remember the days over the past years where he saw Taeyong hunched over computers and papers in the earliest hours of the morning, hands on his face, eyes red and bloodshot with a cup of coffee on the table in front of him that _had_ to have been refilled three times minimum. More than anybody, Taeyong was insistent upon reaching the dream that he had worked so hard to even have the chance to achieve. In the years that Jaehyun has known Taeyong, he’s never met anybody more determined. Sometimes, he finds himself jealous of that determination, a feeling that he loathes. Jaehyun fell off, Taeyong seemed to rise only higher. Taeyong, Jaehyun thinks, might just be the human embodiment of courage and strength. 

(Jungwoo had pointed it out to Jaehyun and Yuta on one night where Taeyong had picked up the closing shift at the cafe, leaving them to their own devices to prepare an edible meal and keep the apartment clear from burns and messes: " _He cares so much about what he's doing that he's forgotten about himself. He can't make it to the end of the road if he's too burned out to take another step."_

" _Not a lot of good things have happened to him, you know_ ?" Yuta had said, staring at the still water in his glass like his eyes would make it move. " _So he feels like he has to make them happen himself. I don't think he knows what winning feels like, so he's obsessed with finding out."_

" _Mhm_ ." Jaehyun hummed, and Jungwoo repeated the sound. " _Keep this between us_ ?" He'd said, because he'd known that if Taeyong heard about their conversation, there was a ninety-nine percent chance that he would have gotten angry. For all the lectures that Taeyong flung in a very disoriented Jaehyun's direction, Taeyong was a mess of his own. A _different_ mess.

Thinking about it makes Jaehyun realize that they might all be messes, and that he's just the one everyone wants to fix.)

He realizes that it’s been a few seconds and stumbles to respond. 

“Hyung, that’s amazing!” Jaehyun can hear Taeyong’s strange happy noises. “I knew you could do it.” 

Taeyong responds with a sound along the lines of _gaa_ and Jaehyun feels that smile finally split his face. “Thank you, Jae.”

Jaehyun starts to mess around with some of the stuff on the counter in front of him. Somewhere in the back of the store, a book drops to the ground, followed by Youngjae’s curse. “What are you thanking me for?”

Taeyong huffs. “You’re the one who's been pushing me this whole time. I think I might’ve given up, if not for you.”

No, he wouldn’t have. Jaehyun tells him so. If Taeyong is known for anything, it’s his determination. 

“Uh-uh,” Taeyong responds, and Jaehyun can envision the look he would be giving him. “Who brought me home after that _disgusting_ party in July that we went to for stress relief and rubbed my back in the bathroom while I was sobbing about not having enough shit on my resume to get the job?” 

“Me,” Jaehyun affirms. “But-”

“Nope! No buts!” Taeyong’s voice is playful, and Jaehyun feels another smile across his cheeks. 

“Okay, hyung.” He knows that Taeyong won’t change his stance. Just as he’s about to open his mouth to congratulate Taeyong once again, Jaehyun feels a little light bulb burst into light over his head.

If there are two things Taeyong loves, it’s his friends and over-the-top celebration. Taeyong would find any excuse to throw a party: for example, Yuta getting a 93 on his psychology final after a semester of toiling over his grades. Taeyong had purchased copious amounts of alcohol and invited over almost everybody that they knew to throw a “Yuta Got A 93” party. Jaehyun still vividly remembers the killer hangover that he had gotten the next morning that had rendered him practically useless for about six hours. For the painfully studious, hardworking, and sometimes even incredibly _shy_ individual that Taeyong is, he sure loves to party.

(Jaehyun would be a lot more into these parties, if, you know, Taeyong could actually hold his alcohol) 

“Hyung.” Jaehyun starts, and Taeyong says _uh-huh_ in response. “Why don’t have a little something-something on Sunday? Like, to celebrate?” 

Just like Jaehyun knew he would, Taeyong lets out a long _ooh_ and shouts his agreement. 

“Sounds fun.” 

“I’ll buy, since we’re celebrating you.” Jaehyun already knows his bank account is going to be wheezing in pain from the amount of alcohol he would have to purchase to appease their friend group. Taeyong knows this too and is probably giggling about it internally.

Taeyong hums on the other line, considering something. Jaehyun stops playing with the stapler on the counter to quirk an eyebrow. 

“What?” He says, and Taeyong hums again. 

“We can have the party, on one condition.” Taeyong's voice has suddenly adopted a serious tone, turning the conversation on its head. Taeyong, turning down a party? Shocked, Jaehyun asks for the condition.

“I’m gonna invite Ten.”

Instantly, the joy and elation that Jaehyun had felt from Taeyong’s announcement came crashing down to earth from the clouds high up above, shattering into a thousand little pieces. It’s instead replaced with a familiar feeling of _fear_ , of _uncertainty_ , at hearing his best friend’s name. Jaehyun hates that: he hates that he’s _scared_ of confronting Ten, even after everything Kun said to him not even six hours ago.

Jaehyun doesn’t even realize that he hasn’t responded yet, but Taeyong continues regardless.

“Okay?” The older of the two questions.

Jaehyun feels an anchor latch itself to his tongue, but he speaks nonetheless. “Okay,” His voice squeezes out from his throat, surprising not only himself but Taeyong as well. 

Taeyong breathes out. “Alright. Sunday.” Jaehyun knows that Taeyong isn’t just talking about the party.

Jaehyun nods his head pitifully. “Sunday.”

“Alright, Jae. I’ll see you when you get home, alright? I made Yuta drag his ass to the grocery store, so we have _food_. I’m gonna make doenjang-jjigae.”

At the mention of one of his favorite dishes, Jaehyun feels himself relax. His hand begins to dance across the counter once more. He’s thankful that no customer has decided to enter the shop in the time he’s been on the phone with Taeyong. 

He breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks, hyung. You always know how to make somebody feel better.”

“Ah.” The older makes another noise. “That’s what you do, though.”

With that, the phone call ends with a _click_ , and Jaehyun is left stupidly grasping his phone in his hand. 

* * *

When Jaehyun and his three housemates (along with a very tired looking Yukhei) gather around their dining table for the dinner that Taeyong made them like animals waiting to be fed by their owner, Jaehyun lays the news about the party down on them, and they all erupt into cheers just as Taeyong did. Of course, Taeyong had revealed the news about his internship to everybody individually (to all except Yukhei, who had apparently spent all day away from his phone cramming for a biology exam that he had forgotten about, who, in his celebration, spilled his cup of water on the floor below) but had left out the extra bit of information as a surprise. Just like Taeyong, his housemates all enjoyed a good party.

“Who’s all coming?” Yuta asks as he shovels food into his mouth. “We don’t have the biggest apartment.”

“Hm.” Taeyong ponders. “The whole gang. Us, Ten. His housemates can come if they want to.”

Jaehyun ignores the glance Jungwoo sends in his direction and continues to eat slowly. 

"Great, because good god, I've needed to relax." Yuta dramatically sighs, making sure that all of the tables' occupants hear it _and_ see it. Yuta is always one for exaggerations. "Class sucks."

"You're almost done!" Jungwoo cheers, clapping his hands. Yukhei smiles at the action. "It's your last time ever doing them!"

That was apparently the incorrect and most insensitive thing to say, because Yuta sighs again, this time making sure to accompany the noise with a fake cry as well. "Please don't remind me that I have to get a real job next year. I came back for a master's just to wait a _little_ longer." Jaehyun can see the phony sorrow dancing in Yuta’s eyes.

"That's an expensive wait, don't you think?" Jaehyun jokes, and Yuta throws a napkin back at him. Yukhei lets out a thunderous laugh, and everyone follows suit. Yukhei's joy is kind of contagious- as they had all come to learn- in the way that when he smiles, it’s considerably hard to resist imitating him. He’s undeniably the mood maker of any group he’s in, and it's all worth his volume to see the way Jungwoo's eyes light up every time he sees Yukhei laughing next to him. 

(Sometimes Jaehyun thinks that Yukhei is such a massive person just because he has to cramp all the love and joy that he emits _somewhere._ )

"Oh! I know." Taeyong suddenly interrupts their playfulness with a clap. Everyone at the table turns to face him. "Jaehyun, why don't you invite our neighbor?"

Everything pauses. 

"What?" Jaehyun says, clearly confused. Taeyong just wiggles his eyebrows the way he always does, and Jaehyun's frown deepens. "I thought this was like, a friend thing. To celebrate _you_." 

Taeyong nods enthusiastically, and Jaehyun squints at him. Taeyong wouldn't ask about something like this unless he had an ulterior motive. "Yes, to celebrate me. So I think you should invite our neighbor, because I said so. I don't mind."

Jaehyun grimaces as he realizes Taeyong's intentions. He never ceases in his meddling. 

"You just remember that I said he's cute, so you want him to come over so you can size him up for me. Come on, hyung. I told you I'm not looking for anybody. He's just that. _Cute._ " Jaehyun knows he's lying through his teeth. None of his friends know about what happened the night before between him and Johnny, and he would like to keep it that way. He knows that he'll never hear the end of it otherwise. _Especially_ from Certified Helicopter Parent Lee Taeyong.

Taeyong decides that now is ample time to use his one-hundred percent most imperfect and unconvincing puppy face (that he swears up and down is better than a _real_ puppy) on Jaehyun, who looks away in mock disgust. "Please," Taeyong says, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout. Jaehyun rolls his eyes and pretends to gag, exaggerating the noise. Yukhei muffles a giggle in his sleeve. "It's not that serious. He can just drop in and say hi. Actually meet his neighbors."

"I've met him before!" Yuta pipes up, but when Taeyong spins around and snaps out of his Puppy Persona to give him a glare, he sits back in his chair dejectedly. "Just kidding. A complete stranger."

"What if I ask him and he says no?" Jaehyun propositions, because that's the most logically sound thing to say when your neighbor you've only had two strangely convenient conversations with in two strange locations invites you to their friend's I Got An Internship party.

Taeyong pouts again, and leans forward towards his empty bowl. "Fine, don't ask him." 

* * *

Jaehyun asks him. 

It's Saturday morning, so it's plausible for Johnny to not be in his apartment. But, it's sprinkling outside, which would make it quite unsatisfactory to be on a jog or a walk. Maybe he has an umbrella, though. Or maybe a job. Jaehyun really doesn't know his schedule, or anything about him besides his name and the fact that he has a tendency to go on walks around midnight on Thursday evenings, which isn't peculiar whatsoever. Jaehyun could knock on the door and Johnny's mystery roommate- who, in his two years of living next to Jaehyun, had never been seen by him or his housemates- could answer instead of Johnny, and that would lead to a whole awkward confrontation where Jaehyun has to explain why he's knocking on the door on a Saturday morning, and _could you please tell Johnny I'm looking for him?_ Which would raise the question of why-

The door swings open, and Jaehyun, with his fist suspended in knock position, stands dumbly as Johnny almost walks into him in an effort to leave his apartment. 

For a second, they just stare at each other, blinking. Jaehyun with his hand frozen in midair much like a cartoon character, and Johnny just… confused. He's the first one to break the silence. 

"Good morning, Jaehyun." He says slowly, concerned, almost. "How are you?"

"I'm...uh." Jaehyun finally notices that his fist is still hanging as if it was about to knock on the door. He quickly brings it back to his side. "Uh. Hey." He almost kicks himself for his awkwardness. Jaehyun tries to look everywhere _except_ Johnny, but somehow, he still finds himself glancing up at him. Johnny's face shows nothing except that ubiquitous warmth, and Jaehyun _knows_ that his ears are burning red.

"Hey." Johnny mimes Jaehyun, his voice steady and calm. Jaehyun calms his nerves as they make real eye contact. Johnny smiles. Jaehyun tries his best to reciprocate. 

"So...um." He can't get the words out. Standing in Johnny's presence makes him feel as nervous and unsettled as a middle schooler, clutching a letter in both of his hands confessing his love to his crush of two years on Valentine’s Day. For somebody who considers himself fairly exceptional at the game of flirting, Jaehyun is stumbling over his words. Not that he’s flirting with Johnny, or anything. Because that would be weird, right? Somehow, he manages to usher his voice from the depths of his throat. "Uh. Are you free on Sunday?"

"Wow." Johnny laughs, and as Jaehyun realizes how his statement could be interpreted, he raises both of his hands in preparation to protest, but Johnny continues on. "Bold. Didn't expect that."

"I'm- That's not what I meant!" Jaehyun finally manages to push out the sentence. He's sure that his face must be as dark as a cherry at this point, and from the look on Johnny's face, he sees it too. He can feel his heart rate begin to pick up speed. "I meant. Well… uh. We're having a… thing on Sunday. A little get together. And… since, y'know, you don't know us very well yet, my friend- um. Lee Taeyong, I don’t know if you know him- thought it would be good to invite you over. To get to know you better. It’s his party, you know. His choice." Jaehyun is making up the story as he goes, begging his heart to stop beating a mile a minute. It doesn't listen, and staring into Johnny's eyes doesn't do much to help. 

Johnny reaches a hand up to comb through his hair. It finally breaks Jaehyun's concentration on his eyes, and he glances down at Johnny's outfit: joggers, sneakers, and a loose white tee that hung off of his form. Jaehyun must have caught him right before he went to work out, or something. Where Johnny had looked ever so undone on Thursday night, with his hair ruffled and his legs dressed in baggy sweats, he once again looks like he had walked straight out of a magazine cover. Somehow, the _realness_ of that night- the vulnerability- had stepped away from him. When Jaehyun glances back up, though, Johnny is already staring back at him, this time with a knowing smile on his face.

"Uh-" Jaehyun makes the noise before he can stop himself, and clutches his hands together. "So?"

"I'm not busy." Johnny's words come with a gentle drone, but there's still mirth in its tone. Jaehyun can feel the tension in his bones ebb away in the slightest. "Are there gonna be drinks?"

"Of course. What do you think this is?" Jaehyun jabs back in a friendly manner, like he and Johnny had known each other for as long as he and Taeyong had known each other. There he goes again, taking it too far. He opens his mouth to apologize, but Johnny is already chuckling and leaning his weight onto the door frame next to him. 

"Exciting, for a Sunday night. I'm in. What time?"

Jaehyun hadn't expected to get this far, and his mind somehow blanks even more than it already had. He just blinks. Johnny waits patiently for a response. 

"Oh! Um. Five?" He offers, shrugging his shoulders. "Is that good, I mean?"

Johnny simply looks amused. "Yeah, it's good." Jaehyun tries his hardest to ignore his biceps as he crosses his arms. "See you then?"

Jaehyun nods briskly, his neck groaning at the rough motion. He's doing everything in his power to get back into his own apartment. The ease from Thursday night had all faded away; perhaps it was the night that had given Jaehyun his confidence to speak to Johnny, or his frustration at everything that had gone down with Ten. 

"See you." He squeaks in a voice that he can't even recognize as his own before he dashes like a bat out of hell back to his own front door and through it. He pretends that he doesn’t hear Johnny’s chuckle behind him. 

When Jaehyun’s finally securely inside of his own home, the door shut tightly behind him, he leans his weight back on it just to breathe deeply. He wills his face to cool down, and for his cheeks to lose the red tinge that surely still covered them. 

He probably looked like a complete dumbass, standing there the way he did, stuttering and blushing. Johnny probably- 

Wait.

Why does Jaehyun care so much about what Johnny thinks? They’ve only spoken three times now, even though the second time was a bit strange to the point where Jaehyun hasn’t told anybody about it. It’s not like Jaehyun is _interested_ in Johnny. Because among the thousand things that Jaehyun refuses to do, relationships are one of them. He doesn’t date; he never has, and he plans to keep it that way for a while. If he’s going to keep _one_ of his promises to himself, it has to be that one. 

“What are you doing?”

It’s Jungwoo, once again discovering him in a compromised position. Jaehyun wrenches his eyes open to meet Jungwoo’s, and only sees bewilderment in his expression. In Jungwoo’s right hand is a glass of water, in his left is a small, black book. He’s still wearing his pajamas- this time, the pants with the baby tigers and a plain black t-shirt, though his feet are still covered in his Rilakkuma slippers- considering that it’s only eleven in the morning. Who told Jaehyun it was a good idea to go knocking on his neighbor’s door at eleven on a Saturday? Who let him-

“...Jae?” It’s Jungwoo again, more confused than before. Jaehyun reminds himself to speak.

“Oh. Uh… I was just talking to Johnny.” Jungwoo squints.

“Okay. So now you’re out of breath and leaning against the front door like it’s your lifeline? Sounds normal.” Jaehyun just stares back at him, and Jungwoo takes a sip of his water. “Oh, man. Alright. I’ll leave you to it.” He proceeds to walk further into the living room. 

Jaehyun takes that as his cue to finally step away from his _lifeline_ of a door and into the apartment, sliding his shoes off and walking past where Jungwoo sat on the couch to reach the hallway where their rooms were. He hears Jungwoo call after him, and he simply groans in response. 

When he parades into his room a few seconds later, he takes a few steps before just collapsing on his mattress, face down with his legs hanging off of the edge, and groaning into the fabric there just as he had done a few moments before. Jungwoo shouts again, probably telling him to shut up. 

He falls asleep like that, thankful that he doesn’t have to work again until Monday afternoon, with his head in the clouds.

* * *

When Jaehyun wakes up again, it’s five p.m, and the morning drizzle had exploded into a thunderstorm. It’s the booming of thunder that startles him into wakefulness and off of the side of the bed onto the cold hardwood floor below. He curses when his head lands on the wood, and immediately reaches up to cradle the back of it with both of his hands. 

“Shit.” It’s becoming something like a catchphrase for him. 

The pain ebbs away in a matter of seconds, but Jaehyun doesn’t move. He untucks his hands from behind his head to slide them along the floor, feeling the nooks and crannies in the spaces between the wood tiles. His fingertips are met with the chill, harsh and unfeeling, as they brush by. He blinks. It takes him a few moments to realize that he’s laying on the floor, running his hands on it. Jaehyun abruptly sits up- probably too fast, his head shouts in protest- and wraps his arms around his legs. There’s a steady ache in his behind from sitting there.

Perhaps as a result of his own lack of inhibition, Jaehyun’s mind drifts off somewhere distant.

Jaehyun remembers how many times he and Ten had laid on that same floor, heads next to each other, blankets strewn all over the place like a tornado had run through and left everything but them untouched. He remembers the words that passed between them, insecurities and gossip and wild fantasies unachievable by either of them. He remembers how Ten had sat on the same floor, with _his_ arms wrapped around his legs, looking so vulnerable and afraid and lashing out when he felt even more threatened, like a wild animal.

He recalls his conversation with Johnny on that park bench two nights prior, with his head and heart in the clouds. _Sometimes_ , Johnny'd said, _you have to step away and reflect on what those disagreements mean. For you and for them._ Like a wise sage. 

(They'd met in their first year of high school, Jaehyun remembers. He'd been small, and bony with gangly arms, Ten much the same, a year older and inches shorter.

_"I'm Ten."_ Those had been his first words to Jaehyun, loud and confident in his ability to say them. Ten's hands were firmly placed on his hips, like he was posing for a picture, but it was just the two of them in the corner of Classroom 1-C, closest to the windows, with the weak morning sunlight still streaming through the glass and onto Jaehyun's face. He'd sat in the desk with his nametag on it, printed largely in black ink, not particularly caring for the ones around him. His middle school had been across the city, and he wasn't expecting to see many familiar faces. _"I'm from Thailand."_ His face was as bright as the morning sun in Jaehyun's eyes.

_"Oh, I'm Jung Jaehyun. Are you doing an exchange?"_ He remembers himself replying, smiling pleasantly at the smaller kid who stood in front of him. 

_"I guess so_." Ten sighed, tilting his head with the words. He paused for a moment but after a few beats of quiet his lips raised in a strange smile, and he released his hands from his hips to press them down onto Jaehyun's desk. Jaehyun's eyes flickered to the motion. 

What followed set the precedent for the years of friendship to come: _"Jung Jaehyun, let's be friends."_ In his youth, and in his easy heart, Jaehyun felt a small smile start upon his face, too. The positive energy flowing off of Ten was nearly overwhelming.

" _Okay,"_ Jaehyun whispered, his voice small. " _You might want to sit down now, though."_

_"Oh!"_ Ten jumped, and instantly slid into the chair to the immediate right of Jaehyun's. 

_"Jung Jaehyun, let's have the best year,"_ Jaehyun remembers Ten having said that, strangely and disjointedly, like something he'd picked up out of a textbook, but it still held meaning to him. Like he'd learned it specifically to say to somebody. Like he'd worried about making a friend.

Jaehyun had smiled, then, just as their teacher strode in with greetings.)

_Sunday_ , Taeyong had said, and Jaehyun had affirmed. _Sunday._

Sitting there with his ass against the hardwood, Jaehyun reaches up to the bed where his phone sat on the covers and dials a number that he knows by heart. 

He reels back when he hears the first ring, vibrating loudly in his near-silent room. Thunder booms outside, and the rain continues its barrage against his window. Jaehyun takes a deep breath when it rings again, and suddenly that _thing_ that made him want to pick up a phone is dripping out of his soul. It’s five p.m on a Saturday, and they aren’t talking, so Ten could possibly be up to anything. What if he glances at the phone and sees that its Jaehyun calling and ignores it? What if-

“Hey, Jaehyun.”

Ten’s voice comes after a click, quiet and raspy in a way that just isn’t _him._ Jaehyun almost lets out a sob of relief when he hears his voice. He hadn’t noticed just how much they rely on _each other_ to be there for one another. Ten sounds sick. He sounds tired. But somehow it's like a light just shone down on Jaehyun’s cold earth.

Jaehyun struggles to speak. He’s scared that when he opens his mouth, sobs will fall out right beside the words. 

“You answered,” Jaehyun mutters. He honestly hadn’t expected to hear Ten at all.

A huff.

"I don't give a shit about what happens. We could fight and you could curse my name and say that you never want to see me again. You call me, I answer." Ten sighs on the other line, and Jaehyun kind of just wants to reach through the phone and hug him. He’d been overthinking the whole thing. "You're sort of the most important person in the world to me, you know." Ten repeats Kun and Sicheng's words from a few days ago almost verbatim, and Jaehyun feels emotion rush over him like a bucket of ice-cold water. He wonders why it was ever hard for him to pick up the phone. 

“Yeah?” Words are still tough for him to utter through the emotion. 

“Hell yeah.” Ten laughs, and Jaehyun is laughing too. 

It’s quiet for a few seconds before the storm makes itself known once more. Jaehyun flinches.

“Ten. Can I… come over?” His voice comes out strained and weak, and if that’s how he's been sounding for the past day, he suddenly understands Taeyong’s concerns.

“Really?” Ten asks, sounding genuinely shocked. “It’s like hell out there. I just got home.”

He’s right. Jaehyun turns around to look to where his blinds are drawn up and sees the absolute misery from outside. The rain is falling like a river opened up in the sky, and the trees are waving wildly in the harsh winds that blow them like noodles. He watches lightning strike somewhere in the distance.

“I’d walk through hell to see you,” Jaehyun sings, earning a noise of disgust from his friend.

“You’re so fucking corny. Fine, come over.” The older of the two snaps, but there’s no real fire behind his words. Before Jaehyun can get another word out, he hears the telltale click of a phone call ending. 

Ten, regardless of anything, will always be Ten. As Jaehyun stands up and stretches his arms over his head, he tries his very hardest to ignore the conversation that he knows the two will have to have upon his arrival. He just focuses on making sure he doesn’t look like he just rolled out from underneath a rock.

Fear, Jaehyun thinks, is something he’s become well acquainted with. 

* * *

Jaehyun, as both of them had predicted, walks through hell to reach Ten’s apartment. After narrowly avoiding a falling branch and a puddle the size of the Nile river, Jaehyun arrives at the front door, and desperately begins to wish he had accepted Jungwoo’s offer for rain boots that he had rejected with nothing but an umbrella in his hand.

He raises his hand to knock- a reflection of this morning’s events, he remembers grimly- but doesn’t even have to. The door swings open right before his knuckle meets the surface, and he is swiftly met with a brightly smiling Kunhang. 

“Thank god,” Jaehyun can hear the man mumble exasperatedly. “Finally!” Kunhang raises his fists up in a victorious gesture, and Jaehyun isn’t exactly sure how to react. Like Kun, Jaehyun has only met Kunhang a few times. “Kun-ge! It’s over! We can be happy again!” He had turned his head to shout into the apartment.

“You’re being a little dramatic,” Jaehyun says. His feet are still painfully wet in his Doc Martens. “Can I come in?” 

“Oh!” Kunhang seems to suddenly realize that Jaehyun is still there. “Yeah, of course.” He sidesteps to allow Jaehyun to take the few steps he needed to get inside. When he wiggles his feet out of his boots in the front area- Kunhang closing the door behind him- his toes scream in gratitude. As he finally lets his socked feet touch the hardwood below, he breathes in deeply. All of the fears and emotions that had been shoved to the backburner after Ten had answered the phone came blowing back to him with full force, disorienting him, confusing him. The confidence he oozed on the way out of his apartment has instead been replaced by uncertainty, and Jaehyun _hates_ that Ten is making him feel this way.

When he glances up, it’s to Kunhang’s smiling face. It’s reassuring, in a way.

“He’s in his room.” Kunhang must sense Jaehyun’s nerves. Jaehyun reminds himself to thank him later. “Waiting like he’s the antagonist in some spy movie.”

“Don’t let him hear you said that,” Jaehyun jokes but begins to walk past the living room to the hallway that houses Ten’s bedroom. The one with the pictures of music notes covering it, Jaehyun reminds himself. He’s the one who put them there. “He’d swear up and down that he’s the good guy.”

“Don’t I know it. Being the good guy isn’t the same as being the main character, though.” Kunhang reclines on the back of the couch. “Good luck.”

“I don’t need it.” Jaehyun says, despite his nerves. Kunhang can see them, too, and his eyes take on a sympathetic look. 

“Mhm.” Is all he says, before he quietly slinks off somewhere into the kitchen.

Jaehyun raises a hand to knock on the third door of his Saturday. 

Fear rattles his heart the same way that it rattles the door, and when it swings open and Jaehyun finally sees Ten’s face, it all vanishes.

Jaehyun and Ten step into each other, arms wide open, before gripping one another in a tight embrace. Jaehyun feels Ten’s bony arms digging into his back- he’s probably hugging him too hard just for kicks- and Ten rests his face on Jaehyun’s shoulder. For a moment, they stand like this in the doorway, uncaring of anything else.

Ten is the first to pull back, unraveling his arms from Jaehyun in favor of placing both of his hands on Jaehyun’s shoulders, as though he were a father giving his son a pep talk before the big game. Jaehyun looks into Ten’s eyes, then; he sees the same fear and worry and concern on Ten’s face that he’s sure is present on his own. Ten just smiles.

“Hey, Jaehyun.” Ten’s voice is raspy and quiet. 

“Hey,” Jaehyun responds, and for the first time since they had last seen each other, Jaehyun feels strong. His voice doesn’t falter. He hopes that Ten can see the relief on his face. 

“Sit down.” Ten lets go of Jaehyun and closes the door as Jaehyun takes the last step he needed to have his entire body in the room, pushing it with his foot. Jaehyun notices that Ten’s wearing hot pink socks that don’t match the rest of his look at all: a beaten-up black tee with a gaping hole near the bottom of it where it met his equally black sweatpants, washed-out and worn from years of use. It’s with a pang of sadness that Jaehyun remembers that he bought those socks as a joke gift for Ten’s birthday earlier in the year, feigning nonchalance when Ten opened the gift box and saw the pair. 

(He'd hidden his real gift- diamond earrings that he had ground for for about half of the year prior- in his hands behind his back. When he handed Ten the actual gift, Ten refused it and begged Jaehyun to take it back to the store. Jaehyun insisted, because _sometimes you deserve good things, Ten,_ and Ten punched him hard on the shoulder with a _you're lucky I'm unemployed_.)

Jaehyun plops down on Ten's bed like it's his own, laying back so his feet dangle off of the side. Sometimes, Ten's bed _does_ feel like his own; that very same bedroom had become the spot for many a dramatic night. Even in his distress, Jaehyun notices, Ten's room is just as tidy as always, his books shelved in alphabetical order and his backpack hung delicately on his bare walls, stark black against the white. Jaehyun's eyes catch Ten's sketchbook- recognizable amidst his other belongings by the array of stickers decorating its covers- discarded carelessly on his bedside table, though; Ten's sketchbook is perhaps the most important thing to him, never left behind, never opened for anyone's prying gaze except for Ten's own. In all his years, Jaehyun has never seen inside of it. Now, as his eyes rake a white page, he feels like he's intruding. He looks away. 

When he shuts his eyes, he feels the bed dip beside him, and he hears Ten's sigh. The two of them had laid like this a billion times before, their feet hanging, to whine and fantasize and gossip like the children they still are at heart. They'd been doing it since they met; two angst-filled teenagers crying over their crushes and Literature grades on Jaehyun's bed back at home had blossomed into two full-grown adults with the same problems that they thought would have left them on their eighteenth birthdays alongside their admissions to college. Now twenty-one and twenty-two, they know better. 

Silence passes between them for a few moments, leaving only the sound of their breathing audible. Jaehyun feels an ache in his hip- probably from the way he's leaning- but he ignores it. Moving would destroy the already fragile air drifting over them. He inhales loudly once, and he can hear Ten do the same to his right. 

"I'm sorry." 

They say it at the same time, Jaehyun loudly and forcefully, but Ten much more quietly, like he's afraid of destroying the fragility. Jaehyun's taken the initiative in doing so. 

"God, I'm-" Ten is laughing, suddenly, but it sounds wet and painful. Bittersweet. "I want to look at you and say that I didn't mean it. But I _did._ That's the scary part in all of this. I'm sorry for lashing out at you when you were trying to help me, but the things I said… I meant them, Jae. I'm worried about you, and I know you're worried about me. That's why I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you with my actions."

Jaehyun is quiet for a moment, but answers, his eyes still tightly shut. "I'm sorry, too. For everything."

Ten exhales. "For what? We gotta communicate, man. Not doing that is what got us here."

Ten's right, but there's a ball in Jaehyun's throat, holding the words back and clinging on to him like a vice. But he knows that no matter what, he has to say them. If he hides from anybody, it can't be from Ten. "I… uh." Inhale, exhale. "I'm worried about you, too. I yelled at you when you probably didn't need it."

"I did." Ten cuts in, and Jaehyun chuckles. 

"Okay, maybe you did. But I deflected from myself to attack you. _Ad hominem_ , or whatever. We kinda just went in a circle, deflecting and attacking and then deflecting again. We-"

"Have to address the _massive_ fucking elephant in the room that we've ignored since we were teenagers?" His best friend helpfully supplies. "Perhaps the crazy self-destructive streaks we both seem to be having?"

Hearing the words spoken drill a hole two inches wide in Jaehyun's heart, even though Ten had said them during their fight. Somehow, the environment made them seem all the more painful. 

"Yeah, that." Jaehyun finally opens his eyes and rolls his head to the right to make eye contact with the bed's other inhabitant. The shifting of his hair against the sheets must've startled Ten- who, interestingly enough, had his eyes shut too- and he flinches, turning to face Jaehyun as well. 

"You're my best friend, so I have to look out for you-" Jaehyun continues, and Ten squints his eyes a little bit. "-but that doesn't mean that I should attack your character."

Ten giggles. "Somehow, you're still ignoring the elephant. He's _huge_."

Jaehyun laughs, and this time, it's hearty and full. "I'm sorry for hiding from you."

Their laughter descends back into quiet, and for a second, they lay there like that, staring at each other. The storm outside was long forgotten, but suddenly, a boom of thunder shakes the room, startling both of them to the point where Ten even lets out a small shriek. After a few more beats of silence, they start laughing again. Jaehyun feels like a grade schooler, and he realizes that perhaps they never really moved past that age of humor. 

"I'm sorry for acting like a dumb piece of shit and worrying everyone around me to the point where even _Kunhang_ catches on, and you know how he always gives everybody the benefit of the doubt, believes that they’re doing well."

Ten takes a deep breath, and Jaehyun knows that whatever comes out of his mouth next, he should listen to closely. The smile was gone from Ten's face, now, instead replaced with a grimace all too familiar. It's the same expression he's worn on his absolute worst days; the ones where he failed important tests, gotten into arguments with close friends, and most notably, the time he had twisted his ankle a week before a dance recital he'd spent _months_ preparing for. Jaehyun still remembers his tears. That expression means _something bad_ is coming. Jaehyun opens his mouth, prepared to ask, but Ten gets a head start. 

"Can I tell you something, Jae?" Ten's voice is quiet, so unlike him, that Jaehyun wrinkles his eyebrows. He registers that tone as _fear_ , something he's become all too well-accustomed to. 

"Anything, Ten." Jaehyun says, and he's serious. Ten sighs, and it's then that Jaehyun realizes how red Ten's face is, like he's had far too many drinks on a late night out. Ten suddenly coughs a little, and that wetness that had been present in his voice a few minutes prior is suddenly making a comeback.

"Okay." Ten starts, the hesitance audible in his voice. Just like Jaehyun, he inhales and exhales before he continues. "Let me tell you about last Tuesday."

Jaehyun reaches back into his memory of Wednesday morning, when Ten had greeted him with a broken sculpture and glaring bruise on his chin accompanied by a pleasant pair of eye bags, visibly hungover. At the time, Jaehyun hadn't thought too much about the story that Ten had spun. 

"Ten-" Jaehyun starts to stop him, but Ten is clearly intent on bulldozering through, and cuts Jaehyun off.

"Let me talk about it. Okay? I have to talk about it." Jaehyun is hesitant for a moment, but leans back as far as the bed will allow him to. Now that he thinks about it, the things the two of them had addressed in the past had always been _shallow._ _Shallow_ crushes and _shallow_ concerns. It makes him realize that the two of them have never managed to break that surface, to delve into their deepest and darkest fears. The fight had been a catalyst of sorts. They fought because they didn't know how to talk about those things. 

"Okay." Ten's nerves are shaking his voice. "Okay. I went to Sooyoung's and got fucked up because I had an evaluation on Monday, right? I told you about that one. Sometimes they all blur together. But I didn't do very well on it. Even when I fail everything else, dance is supposed to be there for me. But I went and fucked it up, y'know?" 

Ten tells Jaehyun _everything,_ and in his silence, Jaehyun had assumed that the evaluation had gone normally. "Ten, why didn't you-" 

"Uh-uh." Ten shuts him up, and Jaehyun sees tears running down his cheeks. It goes against every instinct in his body to ignore Ten's pain, but the older is intent upon finishing. "I, um. I didn't know where to go. Sicheng tried to catch me on my way out, but I got away too fast. So I wandered around for a little bit, and who finds me crying in a fucking park an hour later?" He sniffs. "Of course, it's Lee fucking Taeyong."

Jaehyun is baffled. Nothing Taeyong had done implied that he met up with Ten, let alone anything he said. "What does that mean?"

Ten laughs again, and his eyes are almost completely red and bloodshot now. He wipes at his nose with his sleeve. "Jaehyun, I- Fuck." He pulls both of his hands up now to cover his eyes, and now he's sobbing. Jaehyun places a hand on his elbow, but Ten pushes him off and continues. "Taeyong-"

"What about Taeyong?" Jaehyun asks, and Ten shakes his head. 

"I was crying in the park, and Taeyong calms me down. Asks what's wrong, and I refuse to tell him. He pushes me and pushes me until I just fucking say it, and then I'm crying even more, and he's rubbing my back like I'm a baby. Cause fuck him, right?"

Jaehyun is genuinely confused and concerned at this point. "Why are we talking about _Taeyong?_ " 

"Cause- Fuck!" Ten yanks his hands from where they sat on his face to slap them down onto his thighs. He's looking everywhere except Jaehyun's face. A fat tear rolls down his cheek. 

"I've been in love with Taeyong since our freshman year of college." 

Ten drops the bomb on their conversation quickly, and immediately slaps his hands back over his eyes. Jaehyun had expected quite a few things from their conversation, but that was certainly not one of them. A confession of heavy drinking, perhaps an admission or two. But not _that._ Jaehyun is left gaping. 

Ten and Taeyong had of course known each other for as long as Jaehyun and Taeyong had known each other; he was the hyung who helped him study when his grades started to slip back in high school, and when he needed somewhere to live in his sophomore year in college (after a _disgusting_ price hike on dormitory prices that left him and his mother dizzy), Taeyong was the first to offer a home. The two of them- Jaehyun and Taeyong, at that- had grown monumentally closer when they moved in together with Jaehyun's freshman year roommate Jungwoo and Taeyong's best friend Yuta. In fact, Taeyong and Jaehyun had _met_ through Yuta. For a long time, Ten was simply _Jaehyun's friend_ to Taeyong. It wasn't until junior year that Jaehyun's best friend got closer to his roommates, especially since he had gravitated so close to his own. Jaehyun combs through his memory, but can't recall a single instance where he would have ever considered that Ten was in love with _Taeyong._

"What?" Is all he manages to say, and Ten's laugh is bittersweet again. "Where the fuck did that come from?" He regurgitates his thoughts. "Freshman year?"

It's then that Jaehyun realizes how many things Ten and Jaehyun might _not_ know about each other among the things that they _did_ ; as long as they didn't want the other to know, they wouldn't. That's one amazing thing about human nature: self-preservation. Ten felt threatened by his feelings, and thus kept them hidden from Jaehyun. Simple psychology, or something. 

It makes sense, though, for Ten and Taeyong to have communicated with one another away from Jaehyun's presence. They're both his close friends- they were bound to cross paths at least once or twice when he wasn't there. 

"Fuck." Ten curses for the millionth time that night. "You remember Lee Jooheon's party, the second month of school. I got absolutely shitfaced and passed out on your kitchen floor?"

Lee Jooheon was in Taeyong's year, as Jaehyun recalls. He'd always had an intricate and complex community of partygoers that varied from the STEM kids to the theater kids; when they left his parties, they always had something in common that they lacked inside of the classroom: they were _Drunk_ , with a capital "D", because the distinction matters. That was Jooheon's specialty. Jaehyun wonders what he's up to now. 

"Yes, I remember vividly." Jaehyun grimaces. Ten had probably drunk his entire body weight in alcohol before stumbling through Jaehyun and Jungwoo's dormitory door. When he fell, he took Jungwoo's entire open canister of pretzels with him. He can still remember Jungwoo's expression. "What does that-"

"Shut it! Let me finish. Taeyong and I talked for a _really_ long time that night. But that's a separate story, man. I have to finish the first one." Most of Ten's tears have dried up at this point. "So I'm crying in the park, and Taeyong is there. He's rubbing my back, and I'm so far gone that I tell him everything."

"Ten, what the fuck."

"I know! Shut up. Like, what the fuck was he even doing there? But, he's looking at me all dumb-like and I'm looking back at him and then I freak out and run out of there like I've got hellhounds chasing after me. I know I'm leaving out like half of the story." Ten babbles. "I get home and skip all my classes on Tuesday. Then I go to Sooyoung's to forget about it."

Jaehyun is left absolutely speechless. Words don’t even rise to the forefront of his mind; instead, all he can do is stare blankly at the ceiling above him. Ten sniffles quietly. 

“Taeyong,” Jaehyun whispers, and he probably sounds like a broken record. 

“Taeyong.” Ten affirms. “He’s not the only thing… but he’s one of them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jaehyun can vividly recall Ten telling him about infatuations and crushes since after freshman year had already passed them by. Jaehyun thought that Ten wasn’t even _interested_ in love or anything of the sort. He can’t even remember him having a boyfriend.

(The two of them had been laying much like they are now when _that_ confession passed through the air. Jaehyun was freshly fifteen, and Ten was days away from turning sixteen. Jaehyun had gotten a 3DS for his birthday, and was reclined against the pile of pillows on his bed tapping aggressively at the buttons. Ten faced the other direction, with his head hanging off the bottom of the bed, playfully kicking at Jaehyun even though he knew that Jaehyun would eventually just shove him off. Jaehyun can remember Ten delivering one especially painful kick to his hip, and when he complained about it, Ten said nothing.

“ _Jaehyun_ .” Ten had started, voice quiet in a reflection of their present day. Jaehyun looked up from his _Mario Kart. “I think I like boys_.”

Jaehyun blinked at his counterpart once or twice before he kicked him off of the bed. Ten let out an _oof_ as he slid from the edge and hit the ground below. 

“ _Okay_ ,” Jaehyun replied, in his fifteen-year-old genius. “ _Me too_.”

Ten’s voice drifted up from Jaehyun’s bedroom floor. 

_“Oh. Fuck_.”)

“I didn’t want it to be a _thing_ , y’know?” Ten replies, and Jaehyun feels him sit up. “I kinda just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. I don’t want to be like Yuta and Sicheng, where everyone knows how they feel about each other except themselves, and they have an audience watching them pine without ever really calling it pining. I don’t want to compromise the version of myself that everyone knows me to be. I just want to be that _Ten_ , the one that cracks jokes and gets into all kinds of messes and doesn't have boy trouble. That's why I didn't say anything to you."

"You know that no matter how much you shove it down, the you that you really are will come out eventually." Jaehyun murmurs in response. Ten shifts to the edge of the bed, and Jaehyun- eyes still closed- hears his feet touch the hardwood."I'll be there for you anyway, Ten. We can't hide anymore."

Ten sighs like a mother of five. "Yeah, I know. You should take your own words into account. You sound like that Midnight Moonlight dude. Feel like I'm being psychoanalyzed by everything he says."

Suddenly, the _pitter-patter_ of rain against Ten's window increases in volume as the wind picks up, and the two of them can hear branches smack against the glass. Jaehyun frowns. 

“I listen to Midnight Moonlight,” Jaehyun whispers, and even though this feels like a revelation to rival Ten's in his own mind, Ten chuckles. 

“I know you do.” Jaehyun isn’t surprised by the proclamation. He knows that he can never really hide the painfully obvious from Ten unless he’s making a conscious effort to, even when everyone else around them seems to be oblivious to it. There are, of course, a dozen things on the list of Private Jaehyun Information that Ten has yet to access, even in all of their years together, but some things, Jaehyun knows, Ten can just see. It's something Jaehyun himself cannot do. “I think most people here do, too, and just don’t want to admit it. I listen to it every once in a while.” He pauses to chuckle. "It's no wonder you sound like him sometimes."

Midnight Moonlight doesn't even _matter._ It's not an important aspect of Jaehyun's life- just a guilty pleasure he indulges in instead of studying- yet revealing the information is tough. Any information that he has guarded in his internal prison is _tough_ to reveal, impossibly so; perhaps that's why it comes out in a moment like this, where the two of them truly open up their hearts to the other for the first time. 

"We can't hide anymore." Ten repeats Jaehyun's earlier words, suddenly throwing himself back down onto the bed. Jaehyun shoots his eyes open, and Ten's looking at him again. There's a million emotions swirling in his eyes, and for the first time, Jaehyun feels like he can see all of them. 

"Alright, pretty boy. You have to tell me something too. It's only fair, to both of us." Ten snarks, and Jaehyun immediately furrows his eyebrows. 

"Don't be nosy," He teases, and Ten laughs. It sounds genuinely happy. "There's really nothing for me to say. I think you said it all for me."

Ten kicks his shin. "No, I didn't." He sneers as Jaehyun yelps in pain. 

"What the fuck?"

"Spill!" Ten chants the word at least five times before Jaehyun cuts him off.

"Alright, alright!" Jaehyun tries to push down that burning fear that insists that anything he reveals about himself is _dangerous_. Ten is Ten. Ten has always been there. Ten has just spilled his soul to Jaehyun, so it's only natural for Jaehyun to be able to do something in return. But what does he say? "Um."

"Um." Ten mocks, and Jaehyun shoves at him with his feet. 

"Um." Jaehyun makes the noise again, and Ten whistles. "I don't really know what to say."

Ten's eyes are soft as he flashes a smile in Jaehyun's direction. "You know what I want you to say."

Jaehyun decides that playing dumb is his best option, even though he knows its futile. "And what's that?"

Ten exhales loudly through his nose in an imitation of a laugh, turning away from Jaehyun to look back at the ceiling. Jaehyun turns and does the same thing. 

"You aren't there yet. That's alright." Ten says, and Jaehyun doesn't really have to ask to know what he means. His major, his life, his happiness. Everything that he has on the line. He can't ignore it any longer, and he knows that, but the vice grip on his throat is keeping him from even uttering the words. Ten spilled, in his emotional distress, but Jaehyun- so detached from his emotions that he can barely recognize them as his own- cannot do the same thing. 

Silence passes between them again as they bask in the aftermath of everything that had just been said. Ten and Taeyong- which Jaehyun will _definitely_ have to revisit later, because Ten most certainly did not do an excellent job of explaining the situation. Midnight Moonlight, Jaehyun's guilty pleasure. Jaehyun's insistence upon hiding behind a façade of false demureness and obliviousness in order to protect himself. 

Jaehyun breaks the silence.

"The party tomorrow-" He starts, but for the umpteenth time that evening, Ten cuts him off. 

"Yeah, I know about it. Taeyong invited me." Ten answers in a dejected tone. He pushes both of his hands together to crack his knuckles, a nervous mechanism of his that he had practiced for years.

"Ten…"

"It's all good, man. If he wants to act like it never happened, it never happened." They both know he's lying, and Jaehyun wants to call him out on it, but it doesn't feel right with his own refusal to speak about _his_ secret. Ten had revealed all about his, he has the right to wallow for a little while longer.

Jaehyun reaches his right hand out and holds it there for a few moments before Ten notices it, reaching out his own hand to grasp Jaehyun's.

"Do you think everything would just be easier if we loved each other or some shit?" Ten asks, his eyes not leaving the ceiling. 

"Maybe so." Jaehyun stares, too, a childlike fascination dancing in his irises. "Would make for a good romance novel."

"Aw, man. Not an erotica?" Ten had apparently bounced back from their days of inactivity with an abundance of jokes.

"A story based on two emotionally compromised dumbasses who are alienated from the rest of the world yet find some solace in each other whilst managing to neglect all of their underlying issues because of a fear of confrontation? Sounds sexy." He winks for some reason, even though he knows that Ten can't see it.

Ten starts cackling, and Jaehyun follows in tandem. 

"Something good is coming, Jae. I think it's overdue." Ten says, and Jaehyun wants to believe him with everything in his heart. But he doesn't say anything to respond.

They fall asleep like this; a Saturday evening so early that it's loathsome to call it a night; two sides of the same bed, two sides of the same coin. 

* * *

Jaehyun slinks back through his apartment’s front door at nine the next morning, dragging several cases of alcohol behind him. 

In his decision to wander over to Ten’s place last night, he’d forgotten about his promise to supply drinks for the party that _he’d_ planned for Sunday night; a failure on his part, because he knew that walking into his home empty-handed would only warrant _hours_ of complaints from Certified Beer Lover, Nakamoto Yuta, who had been in something of a dry spell for the past few weeks. They’d _all_ been having a dry spell.

Jaehyun had woken up at a pleasant six-thirty, and seeing as he and Ten had fallen asleep so early that if it hadn’t been raining the sun would still be visible, it’s a feat in and of itself. He must’ve slept for at least ten or eleven hours. Miraculously. He hadn’t slept for more than five in months.

After delivering a kick to Ten’s sleeping form as a means to say goodbye and receiving nothing but a grumble in response, Jaehyun took his leave. 

(Kun had caught him on his way out of Ten’s room at seven on his way to work, apparently; he’d sent Jaehyun a knowing smile, and wordlessly walked into the bathroom, leaving Jaehyun to be confused in his wake.)

And so, he drudged into the neighborhood grocery store at approximately seven a.m and piled as many cases of beer and a few bottles of wine in to one of the smaller carts (Jungwoo will thank him for the latter, he knows it), much to the cashier’s chagrin. The young lady didn’t ask many questions; Jaehyun probably wasn’t her strangest morning visitor. 

Yuta, strangely enough, is sitting in the living room when he arrives, flipping through a magazine of some sort. He’s notoriously the one out of all of the rest to sleep in whenever he got the chance. Yuta’s hair- which Jaehyun is now realizing has finally reached his shoulders, saddening on his part- is messy, like he’d just rolled out of bed and left it like that. Jaehyun doesn’t put it past him. 

Yuta glances up when he hears Jaehyun huffing, slapping his magazine shut and raising an eyebrow. “Welcome home.”

Jaehyun’s stuck between taking his shoes off and dragging the cases further into the apartment. “ _Thank_ you for all of your help.”

Something clicks in Yuta’s brain. “Oh.” He says, jumping to his feet and walking over to where Jaehyun is still standing. There’s a weird amount of happiness to his steps, almost to the point where he’s bouncing on his toes. It’s Jaehyun’s turn to raise a questioning eyebrow: what’s he doing up so early, and what could he possibly be so happy about on a Sunday morning?

When the two of them finally manage to get everything into the kitchen- Jaehyun places a hand on his lower back like he’s an elderly man struggling to even move around- Jaehyun’s finally had enough of Yuta’s excitedness.

“Okay, tell me what’s up.” He sighs, and Yuta has clearly been waiting for the question. His eyes are nearly bulging when he replies.

“Alright, so.” Yuta starts. Jaehyun knows that he’s gotten himself stuck in the middle of one of Yuta’s spiels. “We’re having that party tonight.”

“Yes, that’s what all of this is _for_ -”

“And you know how Sicheng fucking hates parties?” Jaehyun wants to reply with _yes,_ because that’s something that he does know about Sicheng among the millions of things that he doesn’t: parties are number one on the list of Sicheng Hated Things, beating out concerts and Mark Lee. Jaehyun’s about ninety-five percent sure that the latter is a joke. Okay, maybe eighty percent. “I really wasn’t expecting him to say _yes_ when I asked him if he was gonna come. But he _did_. It was so weird.”

Jaehyun tries his hardest not to roll his eyes. “I wonder why that is.”

Yuta is gaping dramatically. “Yeah, me too.”

The younger of the two reaches up to rub at his stiff neck. Sleeping with half your body hanging off of the bed for the second time in less than a week does _not_ warrant excellent results. Jaehyun now knows that firsthand. 

“Where’s Woo and Taeyong hyung?”Jaehyun twists his neck to crack it a little bit. Yuta scowls at the resulting sound. 

“Jungwoo went to see Yukhei. They’ll both be back by three, he said. And poor Taeyong had to cover Mark’s shift this morning. He should be back in an hour tops.” Yuta glances down at the stack of alcohol and smirks at what he sees there, disrupting his line of thinking. “Just realized you got Modelo.”

Jaehyun scrunches up his nose. “Only for you.”

“Aw, thanks.” Yuta opens his arms up for a hug, and Jaehyun just glares at him, but his mind drifts back off to Taeyong. He’d been working his ass off recently: not just for the internship, but at his work as well. Jaehyun has honestly never seen anybody so dedicated to his craft. 

“This party’ll be a good rest for him. He really needs it.” Jaehyun mumbles under his breath, like he’s speaking to himself. They’re always really cautious when they talk about these kinds of things in the house. Yuta hums.

“I think it’s a good rest for all of us.”

* * *

Sicheng- king of punctuality and politeness- is the first to arrive at approximately 4:21, a fresh nine minutes before their friends were advised to arrive. He strides in with his long legs, jacket hanging off of his arm, looking more disgruntled and tired than Jaehyun would have expected him to on a Sunday evening. Nevertheless, he greets Jaehyun quietly.

“Hello, Jaehyun,” Sicheng says in that low drawl of his. His hair is messy, messier than Jaehyun had ever seen it, like he had run his hands through it a dozen times before he came inside. “I hope your day was good.” 

“Um, yeah, it was.” Jaehyun blinks a couple of times before quickly realizing that he’s still standing in the open doorway. With a jolt, he gestures with his arm for Sicheng to walk into the apartment. Sicheng complies. “What’s up, man?”  
  


“Much to my chagrin, I had to cover the morning shift for my delightfully responsible coworker who decided to suddenly leave the country to elope with her boyfriend. My boss knows how much I resent working on Sunday mornings, what with all the loud families coming in for breakfast and brunch. It was a war zone today, and I’m not expecting this to be much better.” The words all come out in one angry breath, and Jaehyun flinches, even though he knows that the anger isn’t directed at him and instead at the restaurant. _Sage_ , Jaehyun recalls, is the swanky upscale restaurant that Sicheng is currently employed at down in Gangnam, complete with waiters and waitresses in fancy suits and a menu rife with ambiguously French and Italian dishes that Jaehyun can never read nor understand. He vaguely remembers the time he, Yuta, and Jungwoo had traveled to the restaurant after scraping together some of their money; the look on Sicheng’s face when he saw them enter had been delightful. Actually, now that Jaehyun thinks about it, he probably only had that reaction because Yuta was there. He and Jungwoo probably would’ve been thrown out.

Sparing Sicheng a second glance, Jaehyun can now see that the outfit the other is wearing is much too formal to wear to a small social gathering with friends. It’s a collared white button-up (buttoned all the way to the top, might he add) and black slacks that look far too expensive to be in Jaehyun’s own wardrobe. The jacket slung over his arm is probably the fancy one that Sicheng is often afraid of soiling, given to him by his boss. 

“Geez, Sicheng. Did you come here straight from work?” Jaehyun asks, and he hears a door swing open in the hallway behind them. Sicheng is kicking off his shoes- the three-hundred dollar ones, probably. Sicheng glances up.

“Well. Yuta told me to be here at four-thirty. I’m here _before_ four-thirty.” Sicheng says, and then his eyes are lifting up to glance at something behind Jaehyun’s shoulder. Jaehyun doesn’t miss the way his brown eyes soften into something indescribable, gleaming with emotion Jaehyun had never before seen in them. 

“Sicheng!” It’s Yuta, loud as ever, reaching past Jaehyun to clap Sicheng on the shoulder. Sicheng smiles affably. 

“Yuta.” He breathes, and Jaehyun watches all of the stress that had tensed Sicheng’s form slowly abate and leave his body. “I came here for you, you know. This thing better be exciting.”

Yuta gasps in fake disbelief. “Are you doubting me? Of course, it’s gonna be great! I’m here!”

Sicheng huffs, and follows Yuta when the older starts to move towards the kitchen, not even sparing Jaehyun a backward glance.

“They’re back at it again, eh?” 

Taeyong somehow pops up from Jaehyun’s side, the one closest to the living room, holding one of those chocolate-covered ice cream cones in his right hand. Jaehyun didn’t even know they _had_ those. 

“Bro, where did you get that?” Jaehyun asks, his voice filled with all of the excitement of a five-year-old when they get offered a lollipop at the dentist. Taeyong tilts his head.

“They’ve been in the freezer for like, a week. They were on sale at the store so Yuta bought like three boxes. What have you been _eating_ for this past week if you haven’t even searched the freezer?”

“Erm.” Jaehyun knows that lying would be the worst possible route for him to take with Taeyong, so he just doesn’t. “Honestly? No clue.”

Taeyong sighs, and waves his ice cream cone at Jaehyun dramatically. “What, do I need to put a baby monitor in your room? How old are you? You gotta _eat_ things and like, _live_ , man. I swear, you’re hopeless.”

Jaehyun sticks his tongue out at the older, and Taeyong pulls his arm back like he’s going to hurl the cone in Jaehyun’s face. Jaehyun raises his arms in defeat, and Taeyong, eyes glinting, lowers his arm. It’s not long before the two of them descend into laughter. 

In between his giggles, Jaehyun feels a little light go off in his head, like he’s forgetting something that’s supposed to be _crucial_ and _big_. Something-

“Hey, Taeyong.” Jaehyun is saying the words before he can even stop himself, before he even knows what he’s going to say. Taeyong snaps his head up and wrinkles his eyebrows. “After everyone leaves tonight, can we talk about something?”

Taeyong finally takes a bite of the ice cream, and Jaehyun is almost certain that he’s feigning innocence. He looks a lot less concerned than he normally would look about anything that would follow those words out of Jaehyun’s mouth, like he’s _trying_ to look unconcerned and unaffected. Jaehyun sees right through him. “What about?” Taeyong’s voice is grated. He knows where Jaehyun went last night.

“You know-”

Their conversation is interrupted abruptly by a firm knock on the door, signaling the arrival of somebody else. Jaehyun looks at Taeyong- who is still staring back at Jaehyun with those big doe eyes of his- and moves to open the door. 

Jaehyun is met with Ten and Kun’s smiling faces, bright even against the light of the hallway. Speak of the devil, that he never really got around to speaking about.

“Hey, pretty boy.” Ten says in that unique voice of his, and Kun waves from behind him. “We come bearing gifts.” Kun and Ten both lift up their hands, and they’re each carrying a tiny bag, wrapped up nicely in paper and further gift wrapping. The one in Ten’s hand is covered in those annoying sparkles that fall everywhere and get stuck to every inch of your skin. 

“Hey, Ten.” Jaehyun smiles back at him, and steps aside to allow the two of them to walk in. Jaehyun sees Taeyong, now oddly reclining on the back of the couch, trying to stuff the rest of the still-quite-clearly barely-touched ice cream cone in his mouth. He chokes a little bit, but smiles with full cheeks at the new guests.

“Welcome!” Taeyong says, or at least Jaehyun thinks that’s what he says. His voice is muffled by copious amounts of ice cream and cone. 

“Congrats, Taeyong!” Ten and Kun say, in creepily perfect unison. Jaehyun wouldn’t put it past the two of them to have practiced before their arrival. He’s not at all surprised by Ten’s lack of squeamishness or nervousness- Ten’s probably the best actor he knows, if the past few years told him anything. His expression is indifferent and his smile isn’t lacking the pieces of a fake smile, so Jaehyun knows his words are genuine and kind. Taeyong, however, isn’t as good at hiding his startle. 

“Oh.” Taeyong’s voice comes out quietly, and Jaehyun can see Ten’s strong grin falter for just a second. “Oh! Thanks so much, Ten, Kun.” Jaehyun’s kind of happy that Yuta and Sicheng are in the kitchen, away from this.

“Of course.” Ten replies, holding out the hand with the bag in it. “We got you gifts.”

“You didn’t have to do that…” Taeyong trails off a little bit, but reaches out a hand and accepts the gifts nonetheless. “It’s just a little celebration, not my birthday.”

The whole interaction is a little awkward, like Taeyong wasn’t the one who had pushed for Ten to come in the first place. Granted, Jaehyun hadn’t known about anything that had gone on between Ten and Taeyong back during that phone call, but Taeyong _had_ , and encouraged for Jaehyun to talk to Ten anyway.

“Come on, you’ve worked hard.” Kun finally speaks up, and amiability is rolling off of his form in waves. “You should celebrate accordingly.”

Taeyong looks at the gift bags, his cheeks a light shade of pink, and smiles. “Thank you.”

“Of course!” Ten booms. “Now, where’re the drinks?”

* * *

Jungwoo stumbles into the apartment at about 4:45 without Yukhei in tow, looking fairly exhausted, like he’d just run a mile. Everybody that had already gathered- Jaehyun, Yuta, Sicheng, Taeyong, Ten, and Kun- all glance up when he comes bursting through the door.

“Hello!” Jungwoo shouts loudly as he kicks off his shoes. “I’m late to a party in my own apartment.” 

Taeyong- who is currently slumped over the arm of the loveseat in the living room after one measly glass of white wine- giggles. “It’s okay. Where’s Yukhei?”

“Ah.” Jungwoo walks further into the apartment, walking past the couch, exposing the cake that he’s carrying in his arms. A collective _ooh_ passes through the gathered men in the room. “We were down at the community center, but he got caught up with one of the kids there. He cares about them so much, y’know? It’s so sweet.” Jungwoo skips into the kitchen and continues speaking from there, his voice echoing. “I don’t think he’ll be able to make it tonight. Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” Yuta grins widely. “More for us. Yukhei’s like a fuckin’ monster truck, he would’ve gone through this shit like water.” 

“Don’t call my boyfriend a monster truck!” Jungwoo calls from the kitchen, and Jaehyun can hear the clanking of some dishes.

Ten speaks up from where he’s reclining on the ottoman with a bag of Doritos. “You just don’t want to hear the truth!” Kun giggles at his side. 

“Okay, okay,” Jungwoo says, and he’s carrying the cake back into the living room, now with the top off and a cake knife in his left hand. The cake itself is fairly small- probably not even a foot in width- with chocolate icing and bright rainbow-colored designs on the side of it. There are two candles on the top of it, burning quietly, one being a “5” and the other a “0”. Taeyong starts cackling when he sees it. 

“Are you saying I’m fifty years old?” Taeyong crows, and everyone else in the room starts to cheer.

“Taeyong fifty! Taeyong fifty!” Ten chants, and raises his bag of Doritos over his head. Sicheng looks startled.

“Okay, okay!” Jungwoo says again, this time louder and more domineering. The room descends into silence. “Since all of us are here now, let’s toast to Taeyong before you all get too drunk for it.” All the eyes in the room turn to look towards Yuta, who raises his hands in his defense. 

“That was _once_ , guys-”

The event in question took place about two and a half years ago at Jaehyun’s birthday party. Jaehyun, who isn’t a fan of celebrations involving himself, was delightfully surprised by his best friends upon entering their apartment, with confetti and balloons to top everything off. Everything had gone swimmingly until about three hours into the party when Yuta tried to do something much like what Jungwoo is doing now, before promptly dropping a burning cake onto Jaehyun’s _favorite_ carpet in his own drunken mess. Luckily, they managed to extinguish the fire without much difficulty, but not before the carpet that _Jaehyun_ had bought was largely covered in a giant black spot.

“Anyway! Since Yuta isn’t allowed to lead in any toasts, I will take the initiative!” Jungwoo lays the cake down on the coffee table, watching as the candles’ flames shift ever so slightly. “Taeyong, if you would blow out the candles.”

“Of course.” Taeyong replies, leaning forward to do just that as Yuta and Ten chant ‘make a wish! Make a wish!’ in the background. Taeyong gathers a huge breath- like he’s the wolf about to blow down the homes of three little pigs- and blows out the flames.

Jungwoo raises a beer bottle that Jaehyun wasn’t even aware that he had acquired, and everybody else follows suit in raising their own drinks. Sicheng lifts up his wine glass, and Jaehyun doesn’t miss the delight shining in his irises.

“To Taeyong and his new future as the _best_ journalist this world has ever seen,” Jungwoo says, and nobody can miss the affection in his tone. Taeyong’s cheeks aren’t just pink from the alcohol anymore- now they burn a bright red, and Jaehyun swears that he can see teardrops gathering in his eyes. It’s not unlike Taeyong to cry about things like this. In fact, he’s shocked that the tears are _just_ starting. 

“To Taeyong!” Everyone else cheers, and soon the room is filled with laughter and the clicking of glasses. Ten finally lays down his bag of Doritos to participate, and Sicheng softly nudges his glass against Jaehyun’s. Jaehyun’s no longer worried about Sicheng feeling comfortable, or Kun feeling outcasted. Everyone manages to make their way into their little family in their own way, at their own pace. 

Taeyong is just about to open his mouth to speak- one stray tear spilling out of his eye to roll down his cheek- when the front door’s bell quietly rings, alarming everybody in the living room to look up at the said door.

“Is that Yukhei?” Ten asks, raising a questioning eyebrow. “I thought you said he was at the community center.”

“He is…” Jungwoo trails off, moving to make his way towards the door, before something clicks in Jaehyun’s head. In all of his excitement, he had forgotten about one very crucial fact.

Jaehyun had invited Johnny, his neighbor, and promptly forgot to tell anybody that he had done so. In his realization, he shoots to his feet, panicked, and rushes past Jungwoo before the younger can reach the door. 

“Uh.” Jaehyun starts, just like he always does when it has to do with _Johnny_. “I invited our neighbor and definitely forgot about it.”

“Huh?” Both of Taeyong’s eyebrows shoot up until Jaehyun swears they’re gonna hit his hairline. “But you said you wouldn’t.”

Jaehyun glances down at his watch. It’s practically five, now. From their sparse meetings, Jaehyun had assumed that Johnny is someone that likes to be on time. 

Once he finally reaches the door and swirls back around so that his back is now facing everybody in the living room, Jaehyun swings the door open, nervousness dancing at the tips of his fingers, and is met with a smiling Johnny, holding a brown paper bag in between his arm and his abdomen, his other arm hanging at his side nonchalantly. 

“Hey, Jaehyun. Sorry I’m late.”

Johnny’s voice is gentle and tame just like it has been the past few times the two of them have met. Instead of the running clothes that Jaehyun had last seen him in, Johnny is now wearing a brown turtleneck and black slacks, glasses on his face, hair neatly combed and away from the rest of his visage. He’s got that polite smile on, and Jaehyun is trying his absolute hardest not to melt into his shoes right then and there. He’s so out of it that he forgets to invite Johnny into the apartment before he starts to speak. 

“You live next door. I thought it would be easy for you to be on time.” Jaehyun scolds, but there’s no actual fire in his words. Johnny’s eyes glint back at him, and his smile widens into a smirk.

“I went to go get this.” Johnny reaches for the paper bag, reaching through the opening and pulling out a fairly well-sized wine bottle. Johnny wiggles the bottle a little bit, and the red liquid inside slushes around. “How do you feel about merlot as a token of apology?”

“I think that will do quite well for Jaehyun.”

A third voice enters the conversation from behind Jaehyun. He flinches, hard, because he had been so lost in Johnny’s eyes that he hadn’t even noticed Sicheng creep up behind him. Johnny looks up at Sicheng’s voice as well, and his mouth opens up into an ‘o’ shape. 

"Oh, Sicheng! I wasn't expecting you to be here." Johnny’s voice is accompanied by slight disbelief. 

"Hello, Johnny. I've told you at least a dozen times that I am well-acquainted with Lee Taeyong and Friends. I _do_ have friends, you know. Shows how much you listen to me." Sicheng’s voice is as calm as ever. 

"Wait." Jaehyun perks up from where he’s standing in between Johnny and Sicheng, and points back and forth between the two. "You guys know each other?"

"Mm," Sicheng affirms, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I've had the misfortune of knowing Johnny Seo since freshman year. He was my Algebra tutor." Johnny rubs at the back of his neck in false embarrassment. 

"Aw, man. How sweet of you." Johnny mumbles in a voice dripping with sarcasm. Sicheng's lips twitch.

"Ooh, attractive _and_ good at math? Jaehyun, this one's a keeper." Yuta is suddenly there now too, leaning over Sicheng’s shoulder to 'whisper' in Jaehyun's ear, but his tipsiness clearly had control of his voice. He has no choice but to wonder if Yuta had managed to down the bottle of beer that was most certainly full when Jaehyun had stood up in less than a minute. Jaehyun is almost one hundred percent certain that Johnny heard them, if the light blush that rises to his cheeks isn't implication enough. He shoves Yuta with his foot and most certainly doesn't miss the way Sicheng's eyes sharpen at the motion. 

"Oh! Hey, Johnny." 

A new voice enters the conversation: Ten, who must've teleported from the far side of the living room. The entryway is becoming quite crowded, now. How in the hell does _he_ know Johnny? Why doesn't Jaehyun know about it?

"Oh, so you know Johnny too? Does everyone know Johnny except for me?" Jaehyun hisses quietly into Ten's ear, and Ten nudges him with his shoulder. 

"Long time no see." Ten reaches out for a friendly hug with Johnny, something that only _friends_ would do, and Johnny returns the action, finally stepping into the apartment. Jaehyun quietly shuts the door behind him. 

“Hey, Ten.” Johnny smiles affably.

"Correction," Sicheng speaks up again from where he is now reclining against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest. "Johnny tutored me _and_ Ten in Algebra."

Jaehyun clicks his tongue. "So you're the hellish nerd Ten told me so much about when we were eighteen."

"Aw, yeah." Johnny is laughing, now. Jaehyun is hyperfocused on the sound. "That would be me. They passed, though. Isn't that what matters?" Their lives have already intersected in so many ways.

"Well, it looks like I have some catching up to do in terms of _getting to know Johnny Seo._ " The two of them move to follow behind Yuta, Sicheng, and Ten as they make their way to the living room, where Jaehyun’s remaining friends are waiting. Taeyong looks extremely curious about the entire situation.

Johnny runs his hand through his hair, and Jaehyun can't help but watch, _again_. He's effortlessly handsome. "Nah, I don't think so." Johnny twirls around to face Jaehyun, stopping in his tracks for a moment. Jaehyun abruptly stops, too. "I'm pretty easy to understand."

"I feel like that's a lie." Jaehyun’s cheeks feel warm. “This is the fourth time we’re talking, and I still have a long way to go.” 

Johnny exhales loudly through his nose in a substitute for a laugh. “I’m willing to teach you all about Johnny Seo.” 

They stop for a second and look at each other just like that, quiet, before Taeyong is suddenly standing in front of the two of them, and everybody else in the room has assumed normal conversation. Jungwoo is standing in front of the cake, hands on his hips, clearly waiting for them to finish so that his plan can finish going through the motions. 

“Johnny, I presume?” Taeyong says, ducking his head in a polite bow. Johnny does the same thing in return before reaching out his hand to shake Taeyong’s.

“You’re the infamous Lee Taeyong. Congratulations are in order, huh?” Johnny adds as he grasps Taeyong’s hand in his. Taeyong’s polite smile widens into something greater.

“Thank you for coming tonight. Jaehyun didn’t even want to invite you-”

“ _Taeyong hyung-_ ”

“-but I thought it would be nice to meet our elusive neighbor after all these years. It’s not a big party, or anything. Just a small thing with friends. I’m sure you’ll fit right in.” Taeyong has a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and is leading him into the living room where the rest of their friends sit. Ten is back to reclining on the couch with his family-sized Doritos bag, probably at least half-empty by now, with Kun, discussing something about a new song or whatever; Yuta and Sicheng are whispering about something on Yuta’s phone; and finally, Jungwoo is still standing in front of the coffee table, guarding the cake like it’s his life’s work. 

Taeyong has already taken the reigns from Jaehyun in introducing Johnny to their friends. Jaehyun is left standing in the back like a ghost. “You already know Ten and Sicheng, and Yuta tells me the two of you have met once. This is Kim Jungwoo-” Jungwoo unfurrows his eyebrows to wave. “-our faithful cake-bearer. His boyfriend isn’t here tonight, but his name is Wong Yukhei, Huang Xuxi, Lucas. Whatever he introduces himself to you as. Over there is Qian Kun-” The Chinese man raises his head at the mention of his name. “-Ten’s roommate and longtime friend. That’s us, really.”

Taeyong places his hands on his hips and observes the room with pride in his eyes. “I hope you’ll feel comfortable here, Johnny.”

It’s times like this when their ragtag group of friends really just feels like family. In between the cake, the candles, the laughter, and the party itself, Jaehyun reminds himself why they had this little get-together to begin with- they all need to _unwind_ , and they best unwind when they’re with each other, in their home together. He smiles tenderly, looking over the room just like Taeyong is, and doesn’t notice the way that Johnny is looking back at him. 

“Now that we’ve all settled again,” Jungwoo says imposingly, his hands still firmly on his hips. “Taeyong, if you would complete the toast.” 

“Oh.” Taeyong murmurs, and everyone else in the room stops their side conversations in order to turn and look at him. Ten crunches one of his chips painfully loud. 

“Okay. Everyone, I just wanted to say thank you for coming out on a Sunday night even though I’m sure you all have responsibilities tomorrow. Some of us should hold back a bit on the drinks.” Taeyong starts, and Yuta shouts back at him.

“This isn’t an office meeting!” He yells, before Ten throws a chip back in his direction and Jungwoo sends him a glare with the force of a thousand suns. 

“But you all know how hard I’ve been working for this internship, and for how many years. Thank you for always having my back, no matter how minor you thought your role was. It helped me in the long run, even just a little _‘you can do it’_ or offering to take me out for a cup of coffee to unwind. So this isn’t just a celebration for me, it’s a celebration for all of us.” 

“Corny!” Jaehyun hollers, and suddenly, the whole room is filled with laughter for the nth time that night. Taeyong is bent over grasping his stomach, doubled over, and Ten is smirking around a chip. Even Sicheng is chuckling quietly, but it might just be the wine. When Jaehyun turns to look at where Johnny is standing next to him, he sees his face crumpled up in laughter, too. Johnny opens his eyes, still laughing, and meets Jaehyun’s eyes, and Jaehyun feels something that he can’t describe. 

Things continue on like this for a while. Johnny fits right in like a puzzle piece that they hadn’t known they were missing, easing into conversations with Yuta and Ten like he had always been one of them. This is the longest Jaehyun has ever been in Johnny’s presence, he realizes, as Johnny says something that makes everyone else in the room laugh. The first time they met was in an elevator, and after that, it was their strange conversation in the park after everything that had gone on with Ten. Everything that had passed between them had been tense, in a way; Jaehyun was always filled with nervous energy buzzing through his body down to his fingertips. Now, in the living room of his apartment full of friends, laughing together, Jaehyun just feels _right._

It’s seven p.m when everybody starts to calm down, group conversations about the dumb things Jaehyun and his friends have done over the years (many centering around Yuta, Ten, or both) tapering off into discussions between two or so people. Yuta and Sicheng have fallen into each other, Sicheng’s head on Yuta’s shoulder and Yuta’s head resting atop his, lazily scrolling through their phones. Sometimes, Jaehyun thinks, the two of them cling closer to each other than Jungwoo and Yukhei.

Speaking of Yukhei, the sophomore had come stumbling into the party barely twenty minutes ago, disgruntled and all out of sorts until he had laid his head on his boyfriend’s lap for comfort. The community center he works at helps to tutor and counsel younger kids as well as to give them somewhere to express themselves; those in attendance are still in high school or in their freshman year of college. Yukhei works there as a dance coach and a tutor to those younger high school kids- especially the ones who came from other countries- even though he doesn’t make any money from it. _It’s just the right thing to do_ , he would say.

“There’s this _one_ super difficult kid from China.” Yukhei had said only minutes ago, Jungwoo’s fingers combing calmly through his hair. “Chenle. Senior in high school. He’s having a really hard time in his classes, and I don’t know if I can give him all the help he needs.”

“You’re trying your best, though.” Johnny had piped up, and everyone’s eyes had turned to him. Sicheng’s eyebrows rose with mild interest. Johnny had truly slid his way into their group with ease. “I’m sure he knows that.”

Yukhei huffed from his Jungwoo Pillow, and smiled the smile that everyone knew would light up the room. “You’re right, man.”

Johnny, as Jaehyun is slowly discovering, is just _like that_ with everybody. A comforting presence that isn’t too _strong_ or forceful. He just offers his two cents and leaves it at that, not pushing or pulling. Johnny just lets things be the way they are.

So that’s how they found themselves here, just the two of them, on the loveseat closest to the balcony, where Ten and Kun had been sitting a few hours ago. Ten has been in the bathroom for about twenty minutes, and Kun is doing something mysterious in the kitchen. Jaehyun stopped asking questions after his fifth bottle. 

Johnny, like always, is the first to break the silence between them.

"So, Yuta and Sicheng, huh?" Johnny says, quietly, so that the pair in question doesn’t hear them from across the room. It's more of a statement than anything else. Jaehyun wants to laugh. 

“Yes, but no." Jaehyun huffs.

“What does that mean?"

"Everyone knows they're in love with each other except the lovebirds themselves. Or maybe they do know, and they don't want to deal with it. Hard to believe that anybody could be that oblivious." Yuta and Sicheng are so lost in their world of Each Other that Jaehyun’s almost one hundred percent positive that he could be screaming right now and they still wouldn’t hear him. 

"They're kind of opposites."

Jaehyun hums. "They're more alike than they would ever admit."

Johnny nods, and it’s quiet again. 

Taeyong is slumped over the arm of the couch across from Jaehyun, snoring, like it’s not seven. Jungwoo and Yukhei are cackling about something next to his sleeping form. 

Jaehyun feels a sudden wave of bravery flow over his body. Perhaps it's the quiet, or the feeling of being on top of the world that his friends give him, but Jaehyun suddenly feels _confident_ , so confident that words spill out of his mouth before he can even stop them. 

“You want to talk out on the balcony?” 

_Fuck_ . He almost immediately takes it back at Johnny’s raised eyebrow- _Jaehyun, you’re a fucking dumbass. Stop embarrassing yourself in front of Johnny Seo-_ but Johnny starts speaking before he can. 

“Jung Jaehyun wants to get me alone, huh?” Johnny says, snidely, smirking.

“It’s not like that-” Jaehyun is quick to say, stumbling over his words, trying to find a way to apologize.

“Jaehyun, I’m playing with you. Relax. It’s alright. Yeah, we can go out on the balcony.”

Jaehyun blinks, once, and then again. Johnny is blinking back at him.

“Oh.” He smiles, too. “Okay.”

When Johnny follows Jaehyun out to the balcony, neither of them see Ten’s curious gaze follow their forms. 

* * *

It’s cold as shit, and Jaehyun is starting to wonder why he thought this would be a good idea. 

Their balcony isn’t that big, as far as balconies go. It’s big enough to fit a tiny table and two chairs, ideal for a smoke break or a lonely drink or two. Except none of them smoke.

The city is as quiet as it’s going to get. There’s a distant siren or two, and the sound of a car beeping, somewhere far in the distance. All Jaehyun can focus on is the brisk autumn air, and he pulls his sleeves down to his fingertips to the best of his ability. It all feels like a painful reflection of that first night Johnny and Jaehyun had sat out in the dark of the night to talk out to the city lights. Maybe that can be their thing.

“Well, Jaehyun,” Johnny says, and Jaehyun raises his eyes to meet Johnny’s. “You’ve got me out here on another cold ass night. Might as well start Getting To Know Johnny Seo, right?”

Jaehyun chuckles. “Might as well.” 

“Okay.” Johnny sinks down into his chair, hands in his pockets. The action seems familiar. “Ask me anything. But I get to ask you back, in my own game of Getting To Know Jung Jaehyun.”

“Deal.” Jaehyun nods, and imitates Johnny’s position. Anything.

It’s probably for the best for him to start basic. “Okay. Favorite musician.” 

Johnny seems to ponder this for a moment or two, biting his lip. “Hm. I don’t think I have a favorite, but right now I’ve been listening to a shit ton of Hozier.”

“No shit.” Jaehyun feels his heart skip a beat, because- “Hozier’s my favorite.”

“For real?’ The corners of Johnny’s lips twitch. “What’s your favorite song?”

“ _Nina Cried Power._ Or… _Wasteland, Baby!_ ” Jaehyun feels his leg start to bounce up and down. “I kinda love everything he does.”

“Good choices.” Johnny smiles fully, and Jaehyun smiles back at him. “You give off a _pretty_ intelligent vibe. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’re, like, trilingual.”

Jaehyun chuckles under his breath. “Is that your question?”

“Yep.”

“Alright, you got me. I’m bilingual, though. Korean and English.” Johnny gasps dramatically.

"You speak English?" Johnny seems baffled by the prospect.

"Yeah, I do." When he switches languages, it seems natural. Jaehyun can't remember the last time English rolled so easily from his tongue. "I lived in America for a few years back when I was younger. Connecticut."

"No shit?" Johnny responds in English just the same, a wide smirk splitting his face, excitement visible. "I'm from there. Chicago."

"I couldn't tell, Johnny." Jaehyun teases, and his heart skips a beat at the peach color Johnny's cheeks take on.

"I guess it is a bit obvious, huh?" He reclines in the chair again. "Just don't really know anybody who does. Speak it, I mean. It's my first language, you know. I only came here when I was sixteen. Seven years ago, geez. I don't think people realize how refreshing it is to be able to speak your native language after not using it for so long." Jaehyun can feel a different kind of energy flow from Johnny as he speaks English, something that he doesn’t quite feel when he’s speaking Korean.

Jaehyun exhales. “Yeah. I know how that feels.” It’s quiet for a second before he realizes it’s his turn. “Oh! Um. This probably makes me sound like a fuckboy, but when did you go on your first date?”

“Ha!” Johnny suddenly bellows, and Jaehyun jumps a little bit. Johnny looks ever so slightly apologetic. “Sorry. My first date was when I was like, fourteen. It was at a movie theater and it was awkward as shit. I think we saw, like, _Iron Man_ or some shit like that. Whatever was out in 2008. It didn’t go well, though. How about you?”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Eh. Dates have never been my thing. I think I went on one in freshman year, but I don’t know if it really counted as a date. He was kind of an asshole, anyway. Haven’t gone out with anybody since.”

“I thought Ten was your boyfriend." Johnny suddenly says, twiddling his fingers. His eyes are down. "I feel like I've seen you guys together before."

Jaehyun laughs, at both the idea and at Johnny’s actions, not even registering his later statement. "What? No. Ten's my best friend. I think dating would be uncomfortable for both of us. He popped pimples for me in high school."

Johnny fake gags. "Gross."

"Yeah, well. The two of us almost swore our lives to a marriage pact when we were fifteen but we thought better of it sooner or later."

Johnny snickers quietly. Jaehyun doesn’t think much of it.

“So what do you major in?” Jaehyun asks, against his better judgment. He knows that Johnny’s going to return the question as soon as he finishes his own answer. God, he’s so dumb. 

“Film. I’m here for my master’s, actually. I went to Korea University for undergrad. I’ve wanted to make stories come to life for as long as I can remember.” Johnny smiles slightly with the words. Jaehyun can see Johnny’s eyes glint as he says them. He knows then that Johnny’s dream means everything to him. Something in his soul makes him want to preserve it. “How about you?”

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

“Well, I'm a communications major." Jaehyun sighs, resting his chin upon his palm and leaning over the table. He pauses, expecting Johnny to say something in response, but when he glances back up to his neighbor's gaze, all he's met with is a look of amusement and a quirked eyebrow. He can feel the tips of his ears start to warm against the brisk night's air.

"You look like you want me to say something." Johnny's voice is gentle and sweet. Jaehyun feels himself falling into a trance. 

"It's not that I want you to, per se. I was expecting you to." Jaehyun shuffles his feet beneath the table, squirming under Johnny's soft yet calculating gaze. There's a depth to his eyes; unreadable, but somehow still reflective of a million different emotions at the same time. Jaehyun feels as though he's staring into the soul of a star. "Everyone has something to say."

"Well. Do you want me to say something?" Johnny questions, and tilts his head in a way that could only be described as 'cute' in a mimicry of Jaehyun's position. When he rests his chin on his palm, he smiles, with his teeth this time, and drums his fingers on his cheek. Jaehyun blinks, and before he can stop himself and despite his usual reservations, he's nodding his head. For some reason, he can't put his finger on why what Johnny has to say really matters to him. 

Johnny cuts right to the chase, not for one second considering shirking his words to lighten their impact upon Jaehyun. “You major in communications, yet that’s not what you want to do. I can see that much.” They're words that he's heard a million times, yet when Johnny says them, it feels as though a steel train has crashed into him, exploded, and the debris from the explosion crashed down upon his head. 

Jaehyun has to take a pause, there. The look he sends in Johnny's direction isn't a glare nor full of any kind of anger, but he knows that his eyes are surely filled with some strong emotion given Johnny's response. His neighbor's smile deepens into something almost piteous or bittersweet, but not for one second does it leave his face. Perhaps he feels as though his smile could bring Jaehyun comfort. 

Someone inside the apartment cheers loudly, and someone else cheers in response. Yet Jaehyun and Johnny were in their own little bubble, far away from everything else. 

“I mean,” Jaehyun mutters, a rebuke on the tip of his tongue, but something in Johnny’s voice makes him draw back. He reclines in his chair, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at the same time. “...Yeah. I guess you’re right.” Somehow, the words slip past his lips in a way that they never could with Taeyong or Jungwoo or Yuta or Ten. It felt easier; maybe it was because of the years and years that Jaehyun had spent with his friends that sadly made it easier for him to lie to them. 

Or, as Jaehyun is slowly learning, maybe it's just Johnny and his _eyes_ and his _smile_ and his _voice._

“Why?”

It's such a simple question, yet Jaehyun’s voice is caught in his throat. Why? He doesn’t ask himself that question very often. Why indeed? What is he doing? It feels as though the weight of the world has suddenly decided to come crashing down upon Jaehyun’s skull, as if he were Atlas, carrying it all upon his shoulders, and the weight of his burden was no longer bearable. In a way, it was almost true. 

“I don’t know.” He whispers weakly. There’s a lot of power in that statement, too; to admit one’s own lack of knowledge. And when the words slide past his lips, Jaehyun comes to the realization that he truly and honestly… doesn't. He doesn’t know what he's doing and who he's doing it for. Time had erased most of those memories and those emotions. 

“That’s okay, you know.” Johnny starts, sitting up as if suddenly grasping Jaehyun’s epiphany. Even looking down, Jaehyun can still feel that concern radiating from Johnny, that want to comfort. “To not know.”

Jaehyun shakes his head a little bit, and looks down at the glass table below him. He finds himself unable to glance up and meet Johnny’s eyes. "But… I did remember what I wanted to do. Who I wanted to be. But life happens, I forgot who I really was, and the world morphed around me in response to that. And I still can't even try to remember those dreams I had as a kid, not without cringing away from them. I was naive. Stupid."

"No, you weren't," Johnny responds. "If we called all the dreams of children stupid and naive, I'm not sure we'd have many people changing the world. When I was a little kid, I dreamed of being a Pokémon trainer." He paused to chuckle, and Jaehyun does, too, despite his overwhelming pain. Imagining a prepubescent Johnny running around proclaiming that he would master Pokémon is an amusing thought. "I look back at it and laugh at how irrational I was, how I wanted to live in a video game world and walk through forests with a team of magic animals and catch some more to keep going with me. But then I think about all of the good things those childhood dreams brought me. They gave me a place to be myself, to get lost in my imagination, and to conjure a world where all of those things are possible.

"When we're kids, dreaming is easy. It doesn't require much thought. I could say that I want to be a firetruck, everyone would nod their heads, and the next week I would dream of being a race car driver. They came to me so easily. Yet, now in my adulthood, dreams come few and far between. I have the one I believe with all of my heart can happen, one day, if I put my all into it. That's the key difference between then and now. The _trying,_ and the realization that despite my best efforts that dream could take years and years for me to reach." Johnny pauses from his long spiel, shaking his head, and fixes his gaze on Jaehyun once again. He looks dazed, as if he himself hadn't even noticed how in-depth he had gotten. "What was it?"

Jaehyun blinks, confused. "What was what?"

Johnny chuckles a little bit, and Jaehyun tries not to latch onto the sound. "Your dream, for all those years."

He stares at Johnny for what feels like the millionth time that night, meeting those glittering eyes. The perplexion, the curiosity, and that _concern_ , still stark against the rest of his expression. Johnny might just have the most incredible face that Jaehyun has ever seen; somehow, everything was reflected in those eyes. Staring into them, the words he had kept under lock and key for so long- words that scared him to death, words that he had tried to forget, so many times- slipped from between his lips in a matter of seconds. With Johnny, Jaehyun strangely thinks, it's easy.

"I wanted to be a singer." Jaehyun visibly recoils, and Johnny's eyes somehow soften even more, but Jaehyun pushes himself to keep speaking. "When I was young, I saw my cousin perform Ave Maria at her college graduation and I thought, wouldn't it be amazing to stand on a stage just like that, to have all the eyes in the room on me, to have all the ears focusing on my voice and my words? It was extraordinary to me." Looking back on that memory for the first time in years hurt him less than he thought it would. 

The fear- that _ugliness_ \- catches up to him in a matter of seconds. 

Johnny's smile reaches his eyes. It takes a lot of effort than he would have ever expected for Jaehyun not to reach across the table and grasp his hand. "Your eyes light up when you talk about that stuff, you know. Like you just won the lottery. Regardless of how much you want to tell yourself otherwise, I think those things still mean the world to you."

Jaehyun's laugh is bittersweet, and he shrugs his shoulders dejectedly. The words still feel unnatural on his tongue, and he can't imagine himself lighting up over them. Not a day goes by where he doesn't _resent_ their presence. "But the world happened. And I was promptly reminded of how stupid I was being."

"The world hits all of us pretty hard, doesn't it?" Johnny questions, somehow reclining more comfortably in his chair and crossing his arms in front of his body. Somehow, this makes Jaehyun want to relax, too. "Tries to knock us down from our pedestals and take everything away from us. Nevertheless, those things deep inside of us will never leave us behind."

Jaehyun scrunches his nose. From what he's learning about Johnny, things like that seem to be commonplace. "That was cheesy." Yet he really isn't complaining. 

Johnny laughs, a beautiful sound, and Jaehyun feels his worlds collide. Jupiter has just spiraled out of control and has flown into Mars at top speed, sending the order of everything into a frenzy. He feels like he’s losing control, losing his grasp on everything he’s held close to him with tight reign ever since he was a child. Johnny’s sweet voice is coaxing more things out of him than he’s ready to deal with. 

"Jaehyun, would you be willing to sing for me?" 

Johnny's words break through the silence and strike a chord in his heart, freezing his body and shocking him into stagnation. The frenzy calms, and he feels nothing but ice-cold fear in his bones.

"Um." Is all he manages to muster. Singing, for him, is a lonely thing. Something he did in his room while he was studying, humming to a simple tune, or butchering the lyrics to Earfquake by Tyler, The Creator. When he was waiting for his food to finish in the microwave, he would sometimes sing strange songs about the food. But he can’t remember singing for anybody except himself in _years._ It had become something for him and him only. 

"You don't have to if you don't want to." Johnny gives him a look that he's never seen before, full of that same curiosity, but something else so deep and unwavering and so undeniably _Johnny._ The balcony descends into true silence for the first time that night. Johnny doesn't press. He never does. Jaehyun is starting to understand why he feels so _easy_ around Johnny; perhaps it's the fact that he doesn't feel the need to wear a mask. When he's staring into those starry eyes, it's like all of the darkness and pain inside of his soul shrivels up and hides away from Johnny's admirable heart. Jaehyun can be who he is, without judgment. 

Scary how quickly he can relax around Johnny, a man he's only known for a week, when he can't even open up to Ten, or any of his other friends, for that matter.

"Not yet, I think." Jaehyun's voice is a whisper. "I can't." Fear has taken hold of him again, memories and nightmares swirling around in his brain like a hot stew. 

"Hey, hey. It's alright, there's no pressure. You take all the time you need. Not every day has to be a fighting day."

Johnny's voice reaches through the cloud that had settled over his head, and it snaps him out of the funk. Jaehyun shoots his head up and meets Johnny's eyes again; Johnny's dark, inquisitive and deep eyes, and feels that fear ebb away into something else. For a moment, they just sit and stare at each other like this. 

“Thank you for telling me that, Jaehyun.” Johnny murmurs, calmly. For the first time in minutes, he’s speaking Korean. “And thank you for giving me a place to talk about myself, too.”

Jaehyun doesn’t know what to say. “Of course, Johnny.” He exhales, once. “It’s… easy, you know. To talk to you.”

“I get that a lot.” Johnny tilts his head. Jaehyun is sure that he does. 

Jaehyun feels himself relax, sitting here with Johnny. Even though it was just the topic of their discussion, he can’t bring himself to start thinking of the pain associated with his _dream_ , with _singing_. He can only think about Johnny.

“Oh.” Johnny is looking down at his phone, now. The clock there reads _8:23_. “It’s getting late. I don’t know about you, but I have classes bright and early on Mondays. Got some homework I waited until the last minute to do, because I’m the smartest person I know.”

“11:59?”

“Absolutely,” Johnny says, and they both stand up in unison. It really does feel like Thursday night all over again. As Jaehyun pulls the door open to reenter the apartment, a lightbulb goes off over his head. 

“Hey, are you busy this week?” Jaehyun asks, and Johnny raises an eyebrow. Johnny slides the door shut when they’re both back in the living room.

“I have work on Tuesdays, but I’m free every day but then. Why?”

“Oh, um.” Jaehyun is twiddling his fingers. “I was thinking a few of us could go out on Saturday. No pressure, just to the pub around the corner from here.”

Johnny looks at Jaehyun for a second or two. “Is this a date thing?”

Jaehyun feels everything come to a screeching halt. He opts to keep his mouth shut, though. He knows that the only thing that’ll come out of it will be stutters, and he doesn’t need to embarrass himself in front of Johnny _again_. 

Not only that: Jaehyun doesn't go on _dates._ He knows himself far too well to even think about doing that to somebody else, considering how emotionally unavailable he's been for the past few years. But there's the undeniable fact that Johnny is _interesting,_ an enigma; someone that had managed to pull things out of Jaehyun that he's been unable to say since high school, all within a matter of sixty minutes. 

(The last time someone had asked Jaehyun out was in his sophomore year, a girl he'd known since middle school; he let her down gently, he remembers. She'd frowned in understanding and said something that Jaehyun still carries with him to this day: _"I get it, but damn, Jaehyun. Do something for once. Be spontaneous."_

Spontaneity still isn't his strong point, but sometimes, he thinks it should be.)

Johnny smirks at Jaehyun's lack of response, but it isn't teasing. Johnny's sure to have picked up on Jaehyun's nervous energy. “Is it okay if I want it to be?”

Jaehyun’s not sure if his brain has given his mouth the green light to say _yes_ , but that’s what it decides to say. Johnny’s eyes brighten considerably. 

“I like this game, you know. Getting To Know Jung Jaehyun. I think I still have a long way to go.” Johnny is sliding on his shoes, but he’s still looking up at Jaehyun like he’s the only other person in the room. Jaehyun feels his cheeks heat up.

“I wanna know more about you, too,” Jaehyun says sheepishly, and there goes Johnny’s roguish grin.

“Your wish is my command.” He says snidely, reaching out his hand. “Let me get your phone number so you don’t have to come knocking on my door every time you want to talk.

“Oh! Duh.” Jaehyun says, pulling the device from his front pocket. Johnny inputs his number quickly, and Jaehyun is rushing forward to open the door for him.

“This was nice, Jaehyun.” Johnny’s expression is so warm. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says, and he's leaning against the door frame the same way Johnny did with him the day before, and he’s sure he looks stricken with affection. Johnny smiles back at him.

"See you," Johnny whispers the words, and then he’s slinking off back towards his own apartment. Jaehyun only closes his door once he hears the loud slam of Johnny’s own, and once he does, he’s leaning against it.

Jaehyun feels warm, all over. In his heart, in his head, and even though it’s not something _physical_ \- in his soul. When he lifts his head, Jungwoo is staring right at him. 

“What’s that smile?” Jungwoo asks, smiling back.

Jaehyun hadn’t even noticed that he’s smiling. But when Jungwoo points it out, he _feels_ it. He feels the way his cheeks are pulled back and his heart is pounding against his chest. 

“I heard absolutely all of that, so I know why he’s grinning. Jaehyun’s got himself a date.” Ten is there, now, holding a glass of the merlot that Johnny had touted along with him. Even just _thinking_ his name has Jaehyun’s heart rate increasing. 

Jungwoo’s mouth opens wide like a fish, and that’s when it finally sinks in.

Jaehyun is going on a date. With Johnny Seo.

  
Maybe _Fear_ lost for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AA i hope u liked it! i put a light of energy into this, but the next chapter i think is my favorite out of all of them.
> 
> please be patient w me im in school now T-T 
> 
> [edit 1/15/20 i have block so i've been fixing this a bunch i will b back soon]
> 
> comments really help me to feel encouraged, i really appreciate you when you leave them!!  
> [story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hF0px19M3eBanOnSdCMEk?si=4s4cstETQ_uP28bPAilkdg)


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